New Film Opening Idea

We have been struggling to think of a new film idea since our spoof idea went wrong, but we have now found an idea we think is great and cant wait to film. We have decided on the idea of two girls who have stolen an exam paper from school. Our two minutes will consist of a conversation between two girls at a park as well as memories/flashbacks of the girls stealing the exam. Also there will be a voice over of a phone call between the two characters. We have decided to make one of the characters very innocent looking whilst the other looks like the typical rule breaker. We have done this to create controversy and a mystery as the innocent one will turn out to be the 'baddie' whilst the other has been peer pressured into this. I think this is a good idea as we are making use of the resources we have and is it not a cliche or a typical teenage film.

DreamWorks - Antz

Antz is an american computer animation film produce in 1998 by Brad Lewis, Aron WArner and Patty Wooton. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson. It was Tim Johnson story and his idea.
Antz was the first animated movie produced by DreamWorks and was incredibly successful in the box office earning $171,757,863. Others succefuls movies from DreamWorks e.g Shrek earned a whopping $484,409,218. Shrek was also directed by the same people.
Antz is a part of Disney/DreamWorks feud as Pixars; Its a bugs life was released a month later where the public thought that one must have ripped off the other as the plot is very similar with a worker ant falling in love with a princess ant in both movies.
Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney in 1994 the day A bugs life was being pitched by John Lasseter the Pixar head. Altough Katzenberg says that Antz was pitched by Tim Johnson Lasseter and Steve Jobs both said they felt betrayed by Katzenberg. Antz release date was moved from march 1999 to October 1998 to be first before its a Bug life as Pixar would not move the release date for their movie Its a Bugs life which was coming out the same time as DreamWorks other movie The prince of Egypt.
95% of Antz reviews were positive and was said to have wonderful animation backed by humor and the vocal talents of its cast make for an entertaining movie. Movie critic Gene Siskel ranked the movie 7th of best films in 1998.
In Antz opening weekend the box office earned $17,195,160.
From the success of the film the video games Antz, Antz Racing and Antz Extreme Racing were created and the film was also nominated 10th in AFI top ten films, while Shrek came in 8th.

DreamWorks - Shrek

Shrek is an american animated comedy directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jensen. This film was loosely based on William Steigs fairytale picture book Shrek in 1990.
This film was commercially successful on release in 2001 and helped DreamWorks to become equal rivals to animated film company Pixar.
As this film was so successful it has led to three sequels Shrek 2, Shrek The Third and Shrek forever after as well as Shrek The Halls which was a christmas special and a halloween special called Scared Shrekless. In 2008 Shrek recieved eigth place in America Film Institutes Top Ten Films of all time.
It was ranked second in Channel 4 100 greatest family films and recieved third place on Bravos 100 funniest films.
Shrek also won the first academy award for best animated feature and was nominated for the academy award best adapted screenplay. Shrek was one of  DreamWorks movies that achieved the highest grossing at its time and was so successful that Shrek became DreamWorks actual mascot for the companys animated productions.

Section B research

DreamWorks Studios are a film company founded in October 12^th 1994 by Steven Spielberg,

 Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Their headquarters are Universal City in California USA.

The key people in DreamWorks are Steven Spielberg who is the principal partner and Stacy Snider who is the co-chairman CEO.

Steven Spielberg is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, video game designer and studio entrepreneur. Three of Spielberg’s films broke box office records each become the highest grossing film made at the time. These films were Jaws (1975), ET (1982) and Jurassic Park (1993).

DreamWorks began in 1994 and the SKG under the logo stands for the three founders last names. In December 2005 the founders sold their studio to Viacom who own Paramount Pictures. In 2008 DreamWorks ended their partnership and sold to India Reliance ADA group for $1.5 billion. The movie studio owned by Reliance is led by Anil Ambani.

In 2004 DreamWorks animation SKGs films were distributed by Paramount Pictures and really took off.

In 1998 DreamWorks produced their first animated film Antz. The company won here consecutive academy awards for best picture. These were American Beauty, Gladiator and A beautiful mind.

The two films that I have chosen to research from DreamWorks are Shrek and Antz.

Filming

Last week me, my group and Miss Foster all came to and understanding that the narrative of our film opening was not working. A spoof was very tricky to pull off and limited us to the amount of camera shots we could use. We have now decided to scrap our spoof idea and start completely from the beginning. We have thought of a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet. We are just trying to think of a good narrative that will also allow us to use a variety of shots and camera angles.

This is England

This is England, This is England 86 and This is England 88 are all written and directed by Shane Meadows. I admire the fact that Shane used the same actors to play the character in the movie and both TV series. This really makes the show look more like reality. I have never seen the movie, however Miss Foster has asked us to watch This is England 88 as it is on the television at the moment. I have heard a lot about the use of camera angles and shots that really make you feel as if your there and that the storyline is real. I am quite excited to watch This is England 88 and will be looking out for any shots I can use in my film opening.

Quentin Tarantino

Recently I have realized that I do not know much about the American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor Quentin Tarantino. The fact that he has so many different jobs shows alone that he has achieved so much and is very good at what he does. Some of the films he directed are Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds. At the age of 48 he has already directed many major films and has become extremely successful. As I am not to familiar with his work I am going to take some time to watch a few movies he has directed.