Evaluation- codes and conventions of action/adventure films - stock characters

The genre of my set of products falls into the category of “action/adventure”. This meant that the first step was to examine some of the typical features of this genre, and decide whether to adopt them in my work or challenge them and push the boundaries of the genre. Typically, action films are full of fast paced, hard hitting music, in order to give the audience a sense of urgency and danger. This coincides with the rapid cuts of the on-screen footage, which create a feeling of time moving quickly, and supports the overall feel of urgency being presented to the audience.

Most action adventure films follow a pretty basic template. In terms of characters, there is a group of typical roles we will always expect to see, known as 'stock characters'.
the protagonist, often seen as a physically fit male, tends to be the 'hero' of the film, coming out victorious just before the credits roll. The protagonist is vital in order to move the narrative forwards, with his dialogue and actions being the audience's window into understanding what is going on. Think of the Final Destination movies. without the main character (Alex) explaining to his friends exactly what he thinks is going on in relation to his 'premonitions', the audience would be left clueless as to why he is suddenly demanding to get off of an aeroplane.but thankfully, he spends the entire film explaining this, and so we are all able to remain in the loop.

below is part of a ranking table found on Wikipedia, which showed the top 50 movie heroes and villains. As you can see, in the top 20 heroes, only 3 of the roles were female. this supports the idea that the protagonists (heroes) of films are typically male.

Rank	Hero	Actor	Film	Villain	Actor
1.	Atticus Finch	Gregory Peck	To Kill a Mockingbird	Dr. Hannibal Lecter	Anthony Hopkins	Te Silence of the Lambs
2.	Indiana Jones	Harrison Ford	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Norman Bates	Anthony Perkins	Psycho
3.	James Bond	Sean Connery	Dr. No	Darth Vader	David Prowse(voiced byJames Earl Jones)	The Empire Strikes Back
4.	Rick Blaine	Humphrey Bogart	Casablanca	The Wicked Witch of the West	Margaret Hamilton	The Wizard of Oz
5.	Will Kane	Gary Cooper	High Noon	Nurse Ratched	Louise Fletcher	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
6.	Clarice Starling	Jodie Foster	The Silence of the Lambs	Mr. Potter	Lionel Barrymore	It's a Wonderful Life
7.	Rocky Balboa	Sylvester Stallone	Rocky	Alex Forrest	Glenn Close	Fatal Attraction
8.	Ellen Ripley	Sigourney Weaver	Aliens	Phyllis Dietrichson	Barbara Stanwyck	Double Indemnity
9.	George Bailey	James Stewart	It's a Wonderful Life	Regan MacNeil	Linda Blair(voiced byMercedes McCambridge)	The Exorcist
10.	T. E. Lawrence	Peter O'Toole	Lawrence of Arabia	The Queen	Voice of Lucille La Verne	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
11.	Jefferson Smith	James Stewart	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	Michael Corleone	Al Pacino	The Godfather Part II
12.	Tom Joad	Henry Fonda	The Grapes of Wrath	Alex De Large	Malcolm McDowell	A Clockwork Orange
13.	Oskar Schindler	Liam Neeson	Schindler's List	HAL 9000	Voice ofDouglas Rain	2001: A Space Odyssey
14.	Han Solo	Harrison Ford	Star Wars	The Alien	Bolaji Badejo	Alien
15.	Norma Rae Webster	Sally Field	Norma Rae	Amon Goeth	Ralph Fiennes	Schindler's List
16.	Shane	Alan Ladd	Shane	Noah Cross	John Huston	Chinatown
17.	Harry Callahan	Clint Eastwood	Dirty Harry	Annie Wilkes	Kathy Bates	Misery
18.	Robin Hood	Errol Flynn	The Adventures of Robin Hood	The Shark	"Bruce"[2]	Jaws
19.	Virgil Tibbs	Sidney Poitier	In the Heat of the Night	Captain Bligh	Charles Laughton	Mutiny on the Bounty
20.	Butch Cassidy and theSundance Kid	Paul Newman and Robert Redford	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	Man	Voice of Paul Starrs	Bambi

in terms of my coursework product, it was felt that we should stick to this stereotype within our characters. By having a male protagonist, it would make him easily recognisable to the audience, and therefore they would be able to identify and pick up the narrative links and hints presented by him throughout the film.

Another stock character that we can recognise in almost all action adventure films is the female sidekick, who's character is normally developed into some form of 'damsel in distress', providing the necessary plot line for the hero to pursue. we felt that this particular stock character was another necessary element to our short film, as she provided the basis for the action. Our hero's actions all point towards him trying to save her from the impending doom he had seen in a premonition.

One stock character that isn't presented in our short film is a villain. In our narrative, the antagonist takes the form of a car, threatening to run down the female character. It was decided that in such a short space of time, it would be much more effective two have 2 characters, and spend time developing them, as apposed to a larger number of very shallow, poorly developed characters. 

The Photoshoot for our Poster

In order to make our poster we needed to take some original images. This is the set up of the photography studio we used. We chose to set up the soft light box in order to create a pale complexion for our subject, and to leave no shadows on the face. The studio, the set up, and the images themselves were all created by Brogan, and all the images produced are original works. The images created will later be manipulated in photoshop, and incorporated into a promotional poster design.

Creating the images for our magazine design

below are some images of a location we chose to take a series of long exposure images to be used as part of out publication review. The images were taken from the centre of the bridge looking down the road.

The images created from this location will be used as a feature piece in the magazine article to promote our film, however they could also be used to create a second poster or an advertisement to be placed on the side of a bus as well, if the situation called for it. 

these are the two images we were most happy with from our photo shoot on location. These were then manipulated using photoshop. By layering the images on top of each other, and then reducing the opacity of the top layer, we were able to create a ghostly effect on the cars in the image. The motion blur of the cars is greatly exaggerated by this layering effect, and enhances the ideas of speed and distortion that we're trying to portray with this image. 

Following that, the layers were flattened to create one image, to which we applied various but minor adjustments including: increased contrast, increased exposure and colour enhancement. 

Below is the final edition of the image we'll use in our magazine article. 

I'm extremely happy with the way this image turned out, however there are a few little issues i would consider tweaking if i had the time to re-do this image. One simple example is the fact that the central car of the image is just slightly off centre. I'd have preferred to have it dead centre, or very specifically off to one side. If i were to re-do this image i would ensure i was at the exact midpoint of the bridge, and i would consider using a 'rule of thirds' grid on the camera to ensure that the main subject was definitely in the location i wanted it to be.

Location Recee for our short film

Below are some images from our test footage of what our shooting locations look like, due to the fact that both of the characters are doing long journeys it was not possible to take images of the whole journey, so instead we took snapshots from our test footage of key locations of our within the production.

medium close up of the bathroom being used for the female characters makeup and toothbrush shots:

medium close up shot of the shower being used for the female character's shower scene:

the location where the male characters scooter is parked at waiting for him to get on it and start riding:

an action shot from the male characters journey, which is a long shot/wide angle shot, located across a road traffic bridge across a dual carrigeway:

a long shot of the country lanes where the male character will be shown speeding towards is destination in the second half of the short film:

long shot establishing the beginning of the female characters journey. The effect of the fish eye lens is particularly prominent here, as it distorts the straight lines of the street and the houses:

Here is a medium shot of the female characters key waypoint where she in on a bus:

Here below is the establishing shot at the beginning of the short film where the female character wakes up, this shot will be done in the female character's bedroom. We decided to use actual locations from the actors houses as we felt they would feel more realistic, and that the surrounding would then suit the characters that are supposed to be living there:

As you can see, all of the above shots are from a first person perspective. However these locations will also be used to shoot some establishing shots, and some third person action to be used in between the first person shots, in order to break up the repetitiveness of the constant first person angle.