Our opening film sequence, EXCEPTIONAL, was of the action adventure genre, although it would be more commonly identified as the 'Superhero' sub-genre.
Our main inspirations for our film were Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, 2010) and the Spider man trilogy (Sam Raimi, 2002, 2004, 2007), as we shared several features with these specific movies, such as the male teenage underdog dealing with a hostile social environment. The trailer for Kick-Ass is below.
Below, the trailer for Spider-man 2
The traditional superhero conventions that we followed were:
question one table
Narrative Structure
We included some recognisable 'superhero movie' stereotypes within our opening clip in order to help the audience identify the genre.
The Hero - Angus
The Love Interest - Jessica
The secondary antagonists - The Bullies
If we were to make a feature film of this, the primary antagonist would be a news reporter who becomes fixated on Angus's story. However, we felt including him in our opening sequence would push the plot along too quickly.
Todorov's Theory of Equilibrium
According to the film theorist Todorov, within all successful plots there is:
1) An Initial Equilibrium
2) A Disruption to the Equilibrium
3) A solution, that either resumes the original Equilibrium or creates a new Equilibrium.
For example in Spiderman, the equilibruim is that Peter Parker is an unpopular nerd. The disruption to this is when he is bitten and becomes Spiderman. The solution to this change is when Peter learns to accept his new identity as a Superhero. We applied this theory when deciding on a plot for the full length film, with the following results:
1) An Initial Equilibrium - Angus appears to be unpopular, unnoticed and unexceptional. He is telekinetic but chooses to keep this power secret.
2) A Disruption to the Equilibrium - Angus's power is revealed, causing a lot of media interest and villainous opposition.
3) A solution, that either resumes the original Equilibrium or creates a new Equilibrium.- Angus learns to respect himself and have confidence adapting to his new lifestyle, and wins the affections of Jessica.
Narrative Techniques
After researching many narrative techniques, we used some in our sequence in order to develop the forms and conventions of action adventure films.
At the start of the clip, the graphics intertwined with the starring cast and crew names are in the form of a comic-book flashback, which briefly reveals Angus's experiences with his powers.
 |
| In which Angus avoids a gangster by using his powers |
The Codes of Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes believed that in films, especially within opening sequences, a series of codes are commonly used to engage the audience. The two main examples of his codes in our clip are listed below:
Action Codes
Example from Kick-Ass
By having the boy film Kick-Ass, the audience will expect the superhero to now become public knowledge.
Examples from Exceptional
|
Screen shot of the Paper Throw. Conventionally, an unprovoked attack on the protagonist this early on would suggest that the bullies will get their comeuppance during the film |
 |
Screenshot of Jessica scolding the bullies. Indicates that she will later break away from her 'popular girl' stereotype. |
Enigma Code
Example from The Dark Knight
When Harvey threatens to toss the coin, the audience is left in suspense as to what will happen next, so continue to watch to find answers.
|
Telekinesis Screenshot. Makes the audience question how and why Angus can use this power. |
We used the opening graphics Spider-man 2 as influence for our project. See the clip below.
We felt that the use of graphics appropriately reflected the comic-book style we were aiming for, but unlike Spider-man 2, where the drawings summarize the events of the previous film, our drawings briefly show Angus's first experience with his power. However, we didn't want to put too much emphasis on this part of his background as the main action of the film begins with his power being a part of the original equilibrium that we've previously mentioned. Other aspects of our film that imitate the conventional format of superhero films include an introductory voiceover, an immediate introduction to the protagonist which clearly shows his low social status, and a suggestion as to what porblems he will have to overcome - in this case winning his love interest and dealing with his power.
Style
To create a comic book effect one of the things that we did was to include several Freezeframes in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, which quickly become tagged as 'Lichtenstein Freezes'. An influence for this aspect was 'Scott Pilgrim vs The World' (Edgar Wright, 2010), however we felt that full moving graphics would be very difficult to produce on non-sppecialised computers. Our pop-art style felt similar to the 80s comic book style, so we used thi, in addition to captions, to include extra information. An example of this can be seen below.
The dialogue is minimal, allowing for more focus on the action of the piece. We used more CUs of Angus than of any other character in order to establish him as the lead, whilst the bullies were in a two shot, connoting that they were more of a gang than separate individuals.
Binary Opposites
We used binary opposites within our sequence to set up conflict for the film. Some of these can be seen below.
Popular vs Unpopular
Comfortable vs Uncomfortable
Continuity Techniques
From examining this clip from Spiderman, we can see that many continuity techniques have been enforced. While the couple talk, the camera stays within the 180 degree rule, which we were careful to maintain during the conversation segment of Exceptional.
 |
| 180 degree rule: All shots of the conversation are taking from this side of the room. |
Between the clip of Mary Jane's CU and the long shot of Peter walking towards camera, she turns around, which is shown through match on action editing. As this significantly improves the fluidity of the film, we ensured that we included this whenever any movement occured. An example of this would be when the bully throws the ball, and we then see the ball hit Angus, as demonstrated below.
match on action
The main way we were able to check continuity across different shoots was through taking photos on a digital camera to keep references of costumes, seating plans and scenery. Some of our shots can be seen below.
 |
| Documenting test shots |
 |
| Initial Costume tryouts for the Bully |
 |
| Initial Costume Tryouts for Jessica |
 |
| Planning seating arrangements |
Our protagonist is a classic underdog. He is a teenager who doesn't feel accepted by the world around him, and to present this insecurity we represented him as being isolated and unconfident. He would be placed at the bottom of the male social scale because he is quiet - shown by the stronger use of voice-over than actual dialogue. We wanted to show this aspect of insecurity by showing him interacting with girls. The dialogue with Jessica is scripted to be stilted and uncomfortable to show that he is at the stage where he is unable to properly communicate with the opposite gender.
