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Some good posts Alex, now include your script, storyboard, interview with actors and photos of location. I would also like to see at least six action film openings analysed. Use the check list to add more posts - and you need to be doing this every day Alex.

Star Wars Episode 4: a New Hope first 2 minutes

The film opens up with perhaps the most iconic music in movie history, THE Star Wars theme plays as credits detailing the back story (Rebels vs Empire, stolen Imperial Death Star plans) roll. When they finish the scene cuts to what appears to be empty space, but as the camera pans down at first see a small moon in the distance and what at the time is an unknown Desert planet (later reviled to be Tatooine) and a ship firing lasers flies past, we then see it pursuer and target, a much larger triangular destroyer (Star Destroyer), the first two minutes end as we see the small Rebel ship take a direct hit from the Star Destroyer. 
What the clip dose is set up the back story and general plot of the film (Rebels trying to destroy the Death Star) and the genre, sci-fi (although some would argue that it is a western set in space, with a Death Star).

Preliminary Task

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE2LidWXsD8&feature=channel_video_title
(due to problems with the insert video option, copy and past above into address bar)

We did a preliminary task that required us to use match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. For it we had to film someone (me) open a door cross a room and then sit down and and share a few lines of dialog with another character. The footage had continuity with a few blunders (hands on different parts of the door) that were covered up in the editing and the risk of me "telaporting" from one shot to another was avoided. Although there were continuity errors that only became apparent when we finished editing due to the presence of sound, as the door squeak was slightly off and there was a click after each shot during the conversation.

Genre of film project

Choseing the genre of my 2 minute short film could be a difficult process, so to do it i will have to carefully disect each genre, statrting now.
Now lets start with the good old Romance or RomCom (personaly i call WrongComs), the whole boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl in the end thing makes me want to punk, i absolutly hate Romance films, so thats off the table.
Lets move onto crime, a slight embaresment is that i have NEVER watch a crime film in its entirity, ive been meaning to watch a few Hitchcock's but i never got around to it so that ones out as well.
Ahh the horror genre, responcible for the rapid evacuation of many bowls and bladders (or at least it wants to think so). While i am a fan of the genre, with Aliens being one of my all time favorite films (its horror okay, dont try to tell me its more of an action film) it has been done irrepareable harm in the last few years by the Twilight (gags) franchise, that has forever ruined the badassery of vampires and werewolves and so has killed any chance of me making a horror short! Thanks Twilight.
Oh goodie now we hit comedy, a gener populated with some of my favorite actors (Simon Pegg, Bill Baley etc.) has always remained a strong possibility, until that is it comes to the fact i have ripped off an un-godly ammount of one-liners from them. But its the best choice so far.
Now we come to the last one, the forever reliable action genre, source of income for retired wreastlers (im looking at you Dwane Jhonson) and ever loved by the box office, it forever has a place in my heart and for that reason allone, its on the table with comedy.

Die Hard, first 2 minutes

The film opens with a plane landing and a nervious John McClain, shown by how he is gripping the arm rest extreamly tightly, and getting advice from the man siting next to him onthe plane, saying he knows what hes talking about, as hes been flying for 9 years. When McClain reaches up to get his bag the man notices that he has a gun and has a look of panic on his face, to whitch John replies that hes a cop, and hes been doing it for 11 years, in what is a "mines bigger than yours" moment. He is seen taking a large stuffes teddy bear out of the locker, for an unkonw recipient at the time. the scene cuts to a mid-shot of John entering an airport lobby  lighting up a cigaret, implying that he is a "hard man".
this operning scene is not a generica action film operning as there is no real action of any sort, it dose however set the scene quite well establishing John McClain as a faimly man and a hard man at the same time (the teddy bear under his arm while smokeing a cigaret).

Action Cliches

The standard action film comes in one of two packages, the first and prehaps most common is that of a gorup of ex-special forces going on one last sucide mission, the heros will almost always be American, Navy SEALS, Green Berets, or just a group of rag tag mercenaries, almost never includeing any sort of European special forces, no SAS, GSG 9 let alone the ninjas of the battlefield the Gurkhas. If there are any foreigners in the team of heros then they will portrayed as shifty and likely to dobble cross the unit. The villiain will either be European (surprise surprise) or from the Middle East or a communist state. When it comes to the basic and predictable plot when they get ready for the one last sucide mission that wil eiter make them all rich (vis the hijack or Nazi gold, priceless paintings or a shipload of money from one of the aformentioned villians home nation) at least one of the unit will decide they dont want a part of it, and then at the end will appear armed to the teeth and save the unit from certan death while sacrificeing himself.
The other common action movie is the indestructable cop who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, most notably Die Hard, where poor John Mcclane gets stuck in the middle of a hostile takover of a skyscaper by European terrorists, the hostile takeover of an airport by ex-US special forces terrorists (who he is able to out gun and beat at hand to hand, the exact places you dont want to be), the stealing of more gold than in Fort Knox by a another group of European terrorists who just so happen to be led by the brother of the terrorist leader from the first film, and finaly the hijacking of the entire USA in a "Fireslae" by ex-CIA terrorists (higly critsied for the lack of yippie ki yay motherf***er).
The lead caracter is almost always a six foot something tall man who can layeth the smackdown on an ungodly ammount of candy arse (see the Rock (the wreastler not the film)) or Mr. T (also had a stint as a wrestler) (so why isnt the Undertaker an action hero yet?) who is possible the only member of the A-Team you need to worry about should you encounter them in a fight. There is very rarely a role for women in action films other than eye candy, look at Megan Fox in Transformers, all she did was stand around a look hot, this is almost always the case except for a few exceptions such as Angelena Jolie.
If its the superhero sub genre of the action film, the villian will alwys have an overly elborate plan to take over the world/setal all the worlds money/kill Batman/Superman/(insert superhero name here) there will sometimes be a betrayal from (insert superheors name here)'s freinds or allies, although this somethimes comes due to insanity from an event in the film and not a secret agenda (Harvy "Two Face" Dent is a pefect example of this).
There is of cousre the immortal hero clitche, prehaps the oldest in the book, where the hero can run through deadly machine gun fire, jump away from explosions, and his ninja accuracy from an impossible with a simple handgun when the villians cant seem to hit anything.
But no matter what, no matter how clitched and perdictable the film, if done right, this can still be one of the most enjoyable genres to watch (even with a lack of yippi ki yay motherf***er) , and if you dont agree with me, in the immortal words of D-Generation X: If your not down with that, i've got two words for ya, SUCK IT!!!!

The Dark Knight, first 2 minutes

The film opens with a long shot of a buildings roof and skyscrapers with a window suddenly breaking, a close up reviels the cause to be caused by a man in a Joker mask, making the audience assume that he is the Joker, the main antagonist of the film and Batman's arch enemy. This assumtion is proven wrong when the shot cuts to another man standing on a street corner holding another Joker mask, he then puts it on as he gets into a car that stopped to pick him up. The shot then cuts back to the first man who, now with another mask wearer, are rppeling from the tower block to the roof we saw at the begining of the film. Again the shot cuts to the car, revielign its occupents to all be wearing Joker masks and discussing the robbery they are about to undertake, saying that the Joker isnt going to get a share because he is sitting it out, with one of them saying that he "Knows why they call him the Joker". The shot them cuts back to the men on the roof disscussing why they call him the Joker, saying he wares warpaint like makeup to scare people, as they break into a communtcations box. The shot cuts back to the men from the car as they climb up the steps to a bank and start firing into the air and knock down a security guard, firmly establishing this to be part of the action genre, and one of the masked men starts pulling bank tellers over there desks saying "move it pall im making a withdrawerall here". The shot is then back on the men on the roof as they deal with the silent alarm the audience satrts to become suspicious of his second man as he reaches into his pocket as the first deals with the alram, a sence of mystery is created here as the first one says that "its trying to reach a privite number" before he is shot in the back by his partner. The mystery is added to when the bank manager comes out of his office firing a shotgun, killing one of the robbers, while the man from the roof tries to break into the vault he gets a strong electric shock that sends him flying backwards, one again adding to the feeling that all is not as it seems, as the scene cuts back to the lobby the manager says that they have no idead who they are steeling from, and they are all dead, he is then taken out with a burst of fire from a Glock when he runs out of ammo. Back in the vault one of the men from the lobby takes out the man at the vault just as he cracks it after a brief conversation about how he took out the alarm guy for "one less share" while revieling that the problems are being coused because its a "mob bank", and how the man from the lobby was "told something similer". Back in the lobby the reamining two men are piling bags of money when the one who took out he vault guy holds a gun to the other saying that he thinks he was told to take him out, but he confuses the man with the gun by saying he was told to take out the bus driver as a bus crashes through the wall to take out the final guy.

This is an excelent example of the action genre, after the main robbery your left wondering who the Joker is, as he didnt turn up during the operning scene, the mandatory gunfight is kept short and is used to crack off a joke "where did you learn to count". It also has the hallmarks of a crime film with the crimernals turning on each other to get a larger share, but the Jokers organisation in planning the robbery means that only he and his favoured goon get the money, or the Joker alone as we never find out who was on the team as they all wore masks and as far as we know the Joker could have been the last man standing.

Comedy Cliches

An idiot/loser, an jerk/idiot/loser or even a group of losers, a hot (somethimes bi, so even hotter) girl the first idiot/loser is trying to impress, and there is usually some sort of mission or quest to win the girl, this is the standrad for just about every comedy EVER produced from both sides of the pond, Dodgeball, Shaun of the Dead you name it, it fits the patten. And then we leave the cliches of the caracters behind, we enter the jokes...
While these are ineviable and, more than often, crude, they can never the less be extreamly funny, one of the classics is one jerk/idiot/loser will eat something they are not supposed to, and then vomit hevily, they will have a sreies of incresingly improbable evens that shall reslut with them getting locked out of the house. Oh, and there naked. And before i finish on the "gross out" moments in comedys, we must not forget there will be a strange incident in a tree, where no one but the poor schumuck who was up there knows what really happend, but he aint telling, and with a bit of imagination you can tell why. There are also certan laws that state that if (and when) a man has to dress up like a woman, normaly sane men will become imediately attracted to him, however sometimes said laws will have fight against a force like Corprall Nobby Nobbs from the Discworld series, and in cases like that the laws will just give up.
One of the most loved (or hights grossing, cos they appeal to little kids) is whats known as the "cuddaly man-child", whitch includes almost everything that Robbin Williams has starred in, is about a man with the heart, and social skills, of a little child who had an unhappy childhood as daddy never loved him, never understood him and he has to reconnect with him in a way that will please children and make the rest of us cringe with the ebaressment the cracter (okay, its almost always Robbin Williams) isnt felling, see Elf and anything else staring Robbin Williams. Or as the Who once said, "i hope i die before i get old", and (in my very skeptical opinion) yes, i just wish he would.

There will always be a gimmick, be in the old tried and tested "road trip", be it something completly rediculois like becomeing God in Bruce Almighty, or even something that feels like a breath of fesh air, a completly origonal comedy setting and premise like the ultimate "buddy cop" film, the might Hot Fuz with Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, openly mocking the America cop films that get churned out ever year and are always mediocre at best (even if they do star the Rock), or Shuan of the Dead, Paul, just about everything with Frost and Pegg in feels so mutch better with the exagreated clitches of both genres the current film is on (cop and comedy, zombies and comedy, sci-fi and comedy, you get the idea). But nomatter what the basic story is the same, simler jokes, etc. In the revised words of Winston Churchill "I have nothing to offer you but blood, crap, and puke."