Rags To Riches

Rags to Riches

5 Gangster Conventions that will appear in my piece;

- Money Motivation
- Suits
- Busy city
- Black Background / White text
- Respected Character

1 Convention I would change;

- The scene will start with the main character being poor.

Mise-en-Scene

Lighting;
Traditional day lighting
Low key lighting when the man is beside the dumpster
Costume;
Rough, ragged and ripped clothing in the first scene
Fresh crisp suit
Props;
Suitcase
Sunglasses
Black bin bags
Facial Expressions;
Frowning (showing anger and aggression)
Sympathetic cowering

Camera

The aspects and camera shots that will be used are;
Establishing shots to show the scene and the location of the character
Long shots to keep a sense of mystery in the second scene to not reveal the characters face
Extreme close up to show how dirty the characters face is in the first scene
Low angle shots taken from floor level, shot from behind so you can see the character, but so you can’t see his face
Extreme close ups of the characters hands, feet, suit & other props

Sound

The sound aspects of this piece will be;
Busy street noises, occupying the audience, making them realise how busy the scene is (diegetic)
Narrative of the main character describing what’s happening in the main scene (non diegetic)

Editing

There will be mainly covert editing to sequence the clip and to order the main section of the piece.
Overt editing will include the inclusion of the Black Background / White text combinations, and also the narrative of the piece.

Storyline - Blurb
This story is of how a man can go from busking for pennies, to owning a quarter of the countries currency in cocaine and cash.
Plot
A man starts narrating his story, showing before then after he becomes rich in one day, and the film is about how he got there.
He gets there through a highly thought out plan to kill the current leader of the mafia using people he knows inside the operations promising them a cut but planning out each of their demises through killings and imprisonment, inspired by the opening of Batman.
Opening sequence
The opening sequence will start with an establishing shot of London city, then showing shot by shot to reveal the main character sitting by a dumpster. This character will be narrating the outline of the story, and giving the audience information about the current state of the country and what the underground scene is like. It will then fade to black, using the black background and white text feature to show a time change of the next day. Then the camera will show an authorative man walking down the street with a lot of money, a fresh suit and a bulging suitcase. His face will not be revealed until 00:02:00, which will be the very end of the opening sequence we make. The man will be kept secret with a clever use of extreme close ups and blurred long shots. Then he will call a cab, still being secretive and pass a piece of paper to the driver with directions to an unnamed location and a scrunched up pile of 100 dollar bills. The driver will look into the rear view mirror at the main character, and with a perspective shot, you will see the character drop his glasses and the audience will notice that it is the character that was poor the day before, he will then say ‘this is a tale of Rags to Riches and how a man like me got there.