Evaluation Question 1

'Mute' - The new action / drama film from Binary Studios'

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

a. Genre

The Genre of our film is action / drama, while our film does follow many conventions of other action / drama movies, it maintains our own brand image and has many characteristics of an independent film. 

We attempted to make our film look like other action movies by adding a colour grade effect over our sequence, and using moody lighting to help set the mood of this dystopian society dominated by technology. We took inspiration from other action movies which frequently adopt the same bluey grey colour palette, such as The Bourne Supremacy (Greengrass, 2004).

In this clip from the second Bourne movie, we can see the washed out color palette and grey lighting which is common in lots of action movies; a convention we wanted to follow with our sequence.

Here we see some stills from various action / drama films which all use the washed out colour palette

Action films often open with an exciting chase or fight, often to help frame the rest of the movie. In this way, our sequence challenges the convention, as there is no action in our two minutes. There are no guns or chasing, we simply begin to get a feel of this strange world in which our film is set. 

Take for example, this clip from The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008), as an example of a common action movie opening.

However, our opening does begin quickly, with loud and frantic music - common in action movies so as to grip the audience immediately.


The dreary urban location we use in our sequence is also common in action movies, such as I Am Legend (Lawrence, 2007). The heavy influence of technology in the world of 'Mute' is also becoming a common theme in modern day action movies. Films like Eagle Eye (Caruso, 2008) or I, Robot (Proyas, 2004) are quite similar to ours; set in a dystopian world where technology has become something more sinister, using many mobile phones and computer screens throughout the film.


b. Narrative Structure


Our film fits nicely into Todorov's Theory of Equilibrium. The theory suggests films begin with a state of balance, or equilibrium, followed by the disruption, and ending with the resolution of the disruption.


- Equilibrium -


Our protagonist, Ava, is living in her speechless world. She is contented, if not overjoyed, and things are very normal to begin with.


- Disruption -


Ava gets caught up in a large government conspiracy when she finds two boys who can still speak; attempting to reach a group of rebel scientists trying to develop voice boxes and overthrow the oppressive authority. The government, who enjoy the capacity to manipulate a silent country, attempt to hunt down Ava and the boys before they can reach the scientists.


- Resolution -


Ava and Ben (the other boy dies in the chase) reach the scientists before the government can stop them, and the government coverup is exposed to the world; the new voice boxes meaning everyone can speak again. Ava and Ben fall in love, and she goes back to her life, happy.


However, we decided to end the movie with a disruption, to set up for possible sequels. After  everyone has their voices back, we see a shady government group discussing their plans to kill Ava and Ben, covered up with claims that the voice boxes are infected; thus silencing the world once again. This adds enigma and suspense to the end of the film, and would attract audiences to potential sequels.


Characters


Our film follows many character conventions of action films, while breaking some as well. We have 'the unlikely hero' scenario present in many action films, wherein a seemingly normal citizen is plunged into chaos and a large scale event, often saving the world in the process. Ava is our 'unlikely hero', but is a girl, which is less common in large action movies. She is also much younger than a normal movie protagonist. 
We have a love interest for Ava, but this is a man as opposed to the usual woman love interest. The victim of the film is the second boy after Ben, breaking the convention as he is an attractive young man and a lead character in the film who drives the plot; not the most common character to kill in an action film. 


Our villain is not an obvious antagonist, but is the faceless government organizations which attempt to track down and kill Ava and the boys throughout the film. They are represented through disembodied voices which communicate through text, and a large number of guards and soldiers which chase our hero's. This breaks the convention of an obvious villain which is seen in many action movies.


Techniques

The opening of our sequence is not edited together in real time, but is a montage sequence.


We did this to help establish the dystopian world in which 'Mute' is set, attempting to create pace and suspense, and to build enigma; as the audience would be immediately intrigued as to why all these people in this world seem to be so engrossed in their phones. Many films open with a montage sequence, ours being quite similar to Phone Booth (Schumacher, 2002) which both set up technology as a theme with a heavy impact on the plot of the movie.

The establishing shot of our sequence creates a clear binary opposite between Ava and the other characters at the bus stop with her, as she is the only one not texting on her phone. This helps establish her character as well, that she is a rebel and does not conform to her society of endless technology.

The rest of our sequence is edited in a more traditional method, in real time. It slows down the pace and helps fully establish the world Ava lives in, introducing us to her family and (with the news article at the end), setting up the main plot of the film. We learnt about continuity theory from producing our preliminary sequence, and it taught us that continuity is important to help the audience suspend their disbelief and produce a seamless, flowing narrative. We utilized techniques such as eyeline matching between characters, the 180 degree rule and match on action to help make our video as professional and seamless as possible. Continuity is extremely important, and must be considered throughout all stages of production and planning. We also needed to consider continuity in regards to sets, lighting changes and costumes.


c. Form

Opening sequences of movies, while they differ wildly, can take two approaches with regard to setting up the rest of the film. They can either begin in the chronological order, starting at the beginning of the story, or they can begin at a point which occurs later in the overall narrative, and jump back to the beginning to show how events progressed to that point.

It is much more conventional for films to simply run in chronological order, starting at the beginning, which is what we chose to do for 'Mute', as we decided trying to incorporate flashbacks and a jumpy narrative would be confusing and difficult to convey in our already complex film.

Either way, the most common feature of an opening sequence is to establish the protagonist and the setting of the film.  See this convention in this opening sequence from Face/Off (Woo, 1997). It establishes John Travolta's character as the main protagonist of the film.

Our opening sequence begins at the start of Ava's story, and follows the convention in that it introduces her (our protagonist) and the speechless world in which she lives. It also begins to set up her character and relationships, showing her rebellious nature as she is the only person not on her phone at the bus stop, and we see her not-so-perfect relationships with her mum and brother.

Just as opening sequences often provide some enigma and clues as to which direction the plot will take, we included this in 'Mute' with the final shot of our sequence, the zoom in on our news article. This article is the first taster of the key themes and plot of the film, and is intended to entice the audience.

See here the enigmatic zoom we used as our final shot:

Our sequence opens conventionally with the names of our distributor, Phoenix International, and our production company, Binary Studios, before the delayed reveal of the title of our film, 'Mute'.

d. Style

While conforming to many conventions of large scale action / drama films, we wanted to maintain a certain British and 'gritty' feel to our film, as we are an independant British company, not a large Hollywood studio. We wanted to make it look slightly different; the palette of colours we use has much less blue than usual, and is shot and edited in a more 'edgy' kind of style. 

The framing of our shots is much tighter than a normal action / drama movie; we use many CU's in our film, with cuts between multiple close up's of the characters edited to be purposefully choppy. This keeps in with our brand image and feel of that gritty Britishness which is not present in many blockbuster and large-scale action movies. Here are some examples of CU's we used in our film.

The CU's also help the audience engage in the world on a personal level, and help engross them in the action. We see many blank, expressionless faces, frantically tapping away at their mobile phones, and this helps set the tone of the dystopian world in which 'Mute' is set.

The editing of our sequence is pacey, with the montage sequence filling the first half, and a quick moving introduction of Ava's home life, before the set up of enigma as the final shot of the sequence. Things move quickly, and we showed this also through our choice of music - a fast and upbeat drum and bass track. The electronic nature of the music ties in nicely with the recurring theme of technology in 'Mute', and the fact it is drum and bass helps firmly establish the British roots of the film and our identity as a British production company.

We incorporated another example of a binary opposite in our sequence when Ava removes her headphones as she enters the house. The scene goes from being very loud and energetic, to an eerie silence; we included no ambient noise at all at this point to help increase the impact of this moment- it is the first time the audience is introduced to this speechless world. 

This is our title card, we chose the font and style specifically to reflect the themes and tone of our theme. It is simplistic, black and white, and heavily technology influenced.

Our credits themselves roll over the footage, as we didn't want to waste valuable screen time with just a black background. Considering most of the credits roll over the montage sequence, we found they were not too intrusive to the narrative of the sequence at all. This is common in action films; the credits are small and relatively discreet in the bottom corners of the screen, so as not too distracting.