Planning - Initial Ideas

Planning - Initial Ideas

This is a chronological collection of my initial ideas on the planning of my film intro including decision of genre, concepts and storyboarding.

I have decided to create an intro to a cop film, using films such as Hot Fuzz, The Naked Gun and Beverly Hills Cop not only as inspiration but as research material to try and find conventions within these cop/spy films. One convention I have found is that the main characters, the protagonists, often fit into one of two cop personalities (at least in the introduction), they are either a dedicated, serious cop who only acts by the book and does everything he can to seem like a perfect police officer, or they are a laid back or reckless person who doesn't always go by the book, opting to use their own methods of interrogation or fact finding, these characters are also often the comic relief character becoming the source of the majority of the comedy. Often when a film has two protagonists (Hot Fuzz) the main character, introduced first will be a serious officer while the second is the abnormal or more comedic of the two. When a film has a single protagonist (Beverly Hills Cop, BHC) he will be a slightly serious cop but will often lean to the laid back, unorthodox methods of crime-solving. I plan to go with a single protagonist in my opening, with the possibility of introducing a second maybe halfway into the intro but this is yet to be set in stone.

I have two possible ideas for the plot of the introduction, I could use the fact that my actors will be 16-17 and produce an intro that focuses on a sort of high-school police force idea with the only example coming to mind being a cartoon airing in the early 2000's on Disney called 'Fillmore!' where the plot follows a child who is part of his school's safety patrol. In the show they parody hardened police dramas, which is the link between it and my chosen genre, where the safety patrol acts more like a police department and the school being the city. This concept would allow me to get past the barriers of typical cop films like brutal violence and car chases as they are only in school and are still students, it would also allow me to use the elements of my school and explain it in terms of continuity.

The second idea is to have it being based around what seems to be an actual police force, with my actors acting above their age, this would require a more refined plot or a different view and could prove difficult to brainstorm for. In this I would need to find a plot point in which would allow me to not need any police outfits/costumes. It would prove difficult to record as my settings would not be a police station. Appropriate props would be hard to find or expensive to buy and typical conventions like car chases would have to change to be bicycle chases.

As of 02/03/16 I have decided to go with my first idea, the school safety patrol with some conventions of more mature cop films included obviously changed slightly to make it appropriate for the age of my actors.

From now on I will focus on scripting, storyboarding, casting and filming. After all this is done I will make a start on editing the final version. All of these will have their own post bar filming.