Genre Convention Research: Peer Assessment Feedback

We sat there in a group working together to review each other's homework. This is what I had came up with.

Jack Nickleson is the leader of a well known NYC gang, until he gets accused of something. Everyone turns on him and it is up to him and his insiders to get his respect and reputation back.

5 Things that should be kept the same in the Gangster Genre;
- Guns/Weapons
- Money motivation
- Lead by a sole figure
- Trust/Loyalty reliance
- Clothing; Suits.

1 Convention I would change;
- The Gang would start off without a lot of money

3 Opening sequences to a movie;

Starts with a spotlight on a man being questioned, he is wearing shabby clothes and with several bruises/cuts on his face. It starts off black and white, however the colour is gradually restored but highly polarised. The contrast will also increase which will reveal and exaggerate the injuries he has sustained possibly by those interviewing him. The whole scene will be a close up of his face under low key lighting with a spotlight on his face. He is asked a question and it slowly fades to black as he tells the story.

My second idea started with a man sitting by a dumpster in a crowded city. He begins to narrate his own story, he talks about the current financial state of the country and what the underground scene is like. The first 0-10 seconds are the traditional black background with white text saying the Date, time and location. The scene then fades to black and white text reappears with the same time and location, but the following day. You then see a mysterious man who's face is still not revealed, walking along the street making people cower as he walks past. He is holding a thick bulging suitcase of money and then he calls for a cab. His face is not revealed due to the clever use of shot angle, focus and placement. You see mainly his feet and hands until he gets into the cab. When the cab driver looks in his rear view mirror, we get a point of view shot and you can then notice that the rich man is in fact the man we saw in the first scene. It goes black and he says the words, "This is the story of how i got there".

My third scene was an action scene. It starts with an office which has been torn apart, occupied by two rivalling gangs, each member firing random shots at the other side, we see a lot of shots through a low average shot duration sequence to increase the tempo and excitement created. A car then appears outside the office, with a change of focus from the action to the background which allows us to see the car is of importance. A mid shot of an authoritative figure walking in changes the mood of the scene. A walk and talk shot is used to show that the mood is slowed down and the scene goes silent. The authoritative figure is then shot by a sniper in a nearby building.

The group I was with told me that my second idea was the best because of the original and creative idea that I came up with. The focus I used on the genre conventions was apparently a strong point and they believed the way that I considered the revealing of the characters was clever and effective. They said that I could improve my idea by including more specific shot details to allow a clearer mental image to be created.