Fight Scene Analysis

Pictures of finished fight scene:

Here we see Adam swing the knife at Kieran, and, through analysing other films' fight scenes; we knew it of great importance to use a variety of shots in a small space of time to create drama and pace. These are critical to a good action scene. Especially since we have time constraints.

The two cuts together form a match on action which allows us to show where Kieran gets cut (his wrist), and also we added a slicing sound to add a bit of 'shock value'; thus adding to the gritty brutality we have been going for.

Here, we utilized blocking to prevent the audience from seeing that Kieran does not actually punch Kieran - this is done by Kieran punching near Adam, and then Adam reacts accordingly to the impact that the punch would make if it was real. 

 

Kieran also stamped his foot when he threw his fake punch, which we then added to with a punch sound effect. Coupling these together beefed up the overall sound in the mix. Also, if we had not managed to find a good punch sound then the original sound would have done the job just fine.

The punch and then Adam's fall combine to make a 'cause and effect' edit, which adds pace and allows us to cut to the next shot where Max holds Adam down onto the table.

 With the punch obviously disarming Adam, Kieran gets his knife and then threatens Adam until he tells the two gangsters where the drugs are hidden; resulting in a successful interrogation, and a successful fight scene.

Resit Special Effects

In order to add an element of action and threat which wasn’t really present in our original production, we decided to add a car chase scene. Whilst obviously not to the scale of Hollywood blockbusters, there were still issues of safety and realism, as we obviously couldn’t run anyone over. To solve this problem, I led on the bonnet with my feet on the floor, and Max’s dad then reversed his car. During editing this will be reversed and the shot will be sped up, in order for it to appear as though I have actually been run over. We filmed this same shot from both the car dashboard and the pavement.

One of our first ideas for implementing special effects was during the fight scene between myself and Kieran, in which he'll get one of his wrist slashed. For this, we needed to formulate a way of delivering a fake arterial spurt of blood. By planned to do this with the use of a short length of tubing and a syringe underneath his shirt.

Fake Blood

We needed the fake blood to be of a runny consistency, in order for it to flow easily through the tubing.

For this we used blackcurrant cordial.

 






Delivery Device

We inserted a length a length of tubing into the end of the syringe.

We then made it airtight with a piece of masking tape.

Finally, a pin was used to block the end of the tubing.

Once finished, it was filled with fake blood and taped to Kieran's arm underneath his shirt.

Despite our best attempts, it didn’t really work, as the camera didn’t pick it up in the low light of Max’s garage. We decided that we’d much rather have chiaroscuro lighting than this particular special effect.

Cast, Costumes and Locations

Cast, Costumes, Props and Locations

We used Adam Nixon as 'the victim' as he seems the most vulnerable and like an ordinary guy. He fits in well with the role due to skinny figure. His large coat helps enforce the view of him being an ordinary, everyday common person.

Max Lake is then used as the 'mastermind' behind the whole abduction and fits in well with his enigmatic role shrouded with mystery of who he is and what is he doing. Max is wearing a suit during our entire production connoting professionalism and that he is an intelligent man which helps enforce his 'mastermind' role. In the beginning shot, Max is shown shaving his beard off, but after an elipsis cut he has the beard again. This is because the storyline is fragmented, much like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, of course this wouldn't be known from the opening. The beard connotes that Max isn't looking after himself really and that when he shaves his beard, it is him starting a clean new life.

I am then is used as the 'brute' of the situation acting as Max's thug doing his dirty work. I fit in well with this role because I am the biggest one of us and the most intimidating. During the film I am wearing entire black, whilst wearing a hoody also to relate to 'gang culture' and the negative stereotypical view of hoodies.







Me made some fake cocaine using flour, baking powder and sugar. This helps replicate the real thing well especially as real films don't use the real stuff. The use of cocaine during our film helps make an enigma surrounding everyone.

We originally used a toy .38 revolver as it connotes danger and death. .38 revolvers are also really cheap to purchase and are a common weapon worldwide for civilians which makes the film seem more realistic as it would be harder for a group of young adult males to acquire armaments. But due to the fact that it looked silly, we replaced it with a realistic replica of a M93 Raffica. This worked better as it made the production seem more serious, as the weapon wasn't bright blue.

We used Max's house for one of the scenes within the film. His lounge helps show that he has a family or a history of one due to the number of pictures around the room, but as the house is empty apart from Max, it makes you wonder where they are or what happened to them. It also raises the question that, is he a hardened criminal, or just a family man with nothing to do with the abduction.

Another location which was used was the street outside of Max’s house. This provided an ideal location for our car following/chase scene due to the road being straight and very long. Not a lot of cars come past either as the house is at the end of the street providing us the ability to film undisturbed.

The main location was Max’s garage which we used for the interrogation scene of our opening. The room was very dark and was lit by one light which therefore made it chiaroscuro lighting. The fact that it went dark very quickly also added to the effect. The garage was also unsettling and made it seem like a thriller as it was filled with power tools which are possible items which are dangerous and could be used in an interrogation, reinforcing our reason for using the garage.

Filming and Editing Process

As we have started filming, we have found that our pre-production processes such as storyboards, shot lists and scripts are not necessarily concrete. This is most certainly apparent when the filming process actually begins, as the medium of film is a creative art form, this, in turn, affects the actual film and how it is put together.

For us in particular, the actual environments used to film in have limitations in space, lighting and sound. These all have to be taken in to account when filming to avoid mistakes such as continuity errors. Consequently, we have had to change much of our shots and some of our narrative. We even considered changing some of our locations, but for practicality issues, not because their use wouldn’t have been realistic. Our main change would have been to film the street shots outside Kieran’s house, but due to problems with the equipment-mainly a lack of charge on the camera-we instead kept with our original plan and filmed the shots at Adam’s house before filming the interrogations scene. The interrogation scenes could not be filmed during the first opportunity we had to do them, again because of faults with the camera, but we did finish the drug dealing scene on the street. However, we decided to re-film some of these shots at a later date, to have plenty of choices during the editing stage of our production.

A good example of the above would be the bathroom scene, where Adam actually had to stand in the bath to film. The art of improvisation is a key weapon in any film director's arsenal. Another good example would be re-doing the scene where a gun is taken out of the bathroom cabinet. For this we could not use a tripod, as we did not have the connector for the camera to be attached securely. So we used the actual environment as the tripod, and this brought a greater realism to the scene, as well as more intimacy with the character in the scene.

When it came to reviewing what we thought would be our final edit before we evaluated or production, we found that we had a major issue, in that it was simply too confusing to be used as an opening to a thriller. To correct this, we decided against using a dual temporal perspective, and instead created a single scene out of the flashbacks and reverted them to full colour. This made the whole production ‘flow’ better when compared to our initial idea of switching between past and present shots.