Research & Planning : Title Sequence Analysis: Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels

In order to analyse the opening sequence of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels  (1998) I will look at the different  elements of the film  and try and establish how they are used to set up character, narrative and genre.
     The music in the opening credits/sequence  is called 100 mile high city, by Ocean Colour Scene. The music helps to establish the sort of tone that the film is based around as it is a sort of Brit-Pop song. Brit-Pop helps to set a British feeling very relevant to the film. The piece of music is at the start, relatively slow paced and as the opening sequence goes on, the music increases to a faster pace and creates a sort of climax at the end of the opening credits. 
     In the opening sequence, I feel that the mise en scene plays the most important part in creating  the tone of eerie feeling and the drama genre. In the opening, the lighting is very dark, this creates the tone of uneasiness around the set. The gritty, cockney feel that we feel in the film seems to create a male feeling, this creates a sense of power which then could determine the main male theme about the film as it progresses.
     In the opening of the film there is a lot of humour created. This has an effect on the audience where it would make them laugh and invites them into the film straight away. This humour is created by the wheeler dealer attributes that the characters have . This would be exciting for some viewers because it sets the exciting, humourous sort of tone straight away. 
       In the opening scene the camera seems to be hand-held and it seems to compliment the setting because again of the inner city London feel that the opening creates. The cuts are relatively infrequent and this helps to establish the real life feeling. Towards the end of the opening sequence when the two characters are running from the police, there is a time when slow motion has been used, this could have been used to let the audience reflect on the first couple of minutes of the film and let them make their own judgements and predictions of what they think that will happen in the rest of the film.
     The main colours used in the opening sequence are mainly dark colours, everyone seems to be wearing dark coloured clothes which could represent the unity in the London people, the customers seem to understand that what they are buying is probably stolen but they seem to trust Bacon, the seller.
     Overall I think that the opening of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels  has a great effect of setting the tone for the rest of the film mainly because of the cockney feel that is presented in the sequence by the unity of the people and the humour created by the main characters and their personalities, and the way they come across using the ryming slang to create the London Feeling.

Audience Research : Focus Group

Do you enjoy films such as This Is England, Green Street? - Mainly our Focus group said that they do enjoy these films.
Do you prefer these films to be violent or not? - They do like these films to be violent but not so that it becomes unrealistic.
Have you seen Kidulthood or Adulthood? If so what did you like and dislike about the two? - All of the Focus group have seen these films and they liked the realism of them and how it highlights the social problems in urban areas in the UK. They couldn't think of anything that they disliked about the films.
What is your favourite ever film? - The Focus group were mixed between Green Street & The Godfather.
After reading the synopsis, what do you expect to happen next in the film? - They said that they would expect something similar to Kidulthood. They think that their could be a strong link with drugs or violence in the urban setting.

Synopsis

Our film opening will be set in a very urban setting, there will be tower blocks and an underpass and will involve two characters. The character named Jay will be standing at the bottom of the underpass and will greet the other character, Aaron who will be shown walking down the ramp towards the Jay at the bottom. They will exchange a package by shaking hands and then will talk briefly. After this the Aaron then walks off through the underpass and back up onto ground level. After this the camera follows Aaron and ends the opening sequence.

Planning the Film

We have had a group meeting and decided the following...
     That we are only going to have 2 characters and that we are only going to see one persons face. We are going to show the face of the main character. We have decided that to play our characters we are going to get some of our friends. We have decided this because many of our friends would fit this role perfectly. We will make sure that they are dressed in hoodies and look generally urban.
     We have found a place near our area where we can film. The place looks very urban as there is an underpass going beneath a road and there are tower blocks surrounding this. This fits into our genre perfectly. We would like to create an urban atmosphere and we will do this by having traffic has a sound effect which will fit in well because we are going to film underneath a road. We will film at dusk so that it fits the scene of the plot in which it is set. The only prop that we are going to have is going to be a package which the two characters will exchange and the lighting will support this because of the suspiciousness that the exchange creates.
     In our opening sequence a exchange between two people will happen, the package will be covered up in a plastic bag which will leave questions, a sense of mystery but still leaving the British realism genre in there.
     In our opening sequence the credits will be in a very plain and boring style because we will not need any graffiti or urban style font as this is already presented by the setting. However we will have some distorted cuts in the sequence to create a unusual feeling to the film opening.