The Runner

CW Commentary

Me and my partner Louis decided to choose the moving image project for our coursework because we both preferred doing the practical side of filming and editing a sequence of film. The Title that we finally agreed on for the film is ‘The Runner’. We liked this title because the film events are all caused by a marathon runner.

Our opening sequence for our film starts with the man in the boot being taken to a spot to be killed, we had this part at the beginning because we wanted the audience to be intrigued in how the boy became a loan shark. This scene shows the man in the boot escaping for the fourth time, this is the comedy element of our dark comedy because it shows how there can be a funny side to serious crimes. The following footage is the opening credits and it shows the man being kidnapped for the first time five day prior to his encounter with the boy. The narrative voice over of the boy says that he wants to show the audience the very beginning of how it all began, but what is meant by this is his story, not the kidnapping of the man. We hoped that people will understand this. Our Film is about an 18 year old boy who wants to go to college, but his parents can’t afford for him to go. He is desperate and tries to make some money any way he can, when all else fails he comes across a man who is willing to pay him some money as long as it is paid back. The boy takes the money without thinking and manages to get in to a college. The Man that the boy takes the money off happens to be a loan shark, so when he comes to collect the money it is sooner than the boy expects, plus the amount owed has increased. The Boy doesn’t have anywhere near enough money to pay him, so as a deal he says that he will work for the loan shark with anything he needs. At first the errands start off small but gradually get more dangerous and more illegal, one of the crimes that the boy objects to the most is kidnapping. The loan shark is angry and explains that the man he has kidnapped owes him a lot of money and that it is the fourth time that he has had to track the man down because he just keeps escaping. They take the man to a quiet location and the boy is told to open the boot, when he does the loan shark leans over the boot and shoots the man in the stomach. The boy is thoroughly shook up by this and shouts at the loan shark, causing them both to be distracted as the man climbs out of the boot and runs off again. They both give chase but the loan shark is very unhealthy and gives up nearly straight away, so he gives the boy his gun and tells him to chase him down and kill him. The boy manages to catch up with him and holds him at gun point down an alley way, but the boy cannot kill him. The man takes this opportunity to run away, but when he turns to flee he is hit by a bus. The loan shark catches up and finds the boy staring at the smear on the road; he drags the boy away when they hear sirens in the distance. The boy is back at his house curled up on his bed, thinking about what to do. He decides to call the police and get them to arrest him so that he can’t harm him or his family. The police bust in on a deal that the loan shark is doing the following day. The loan shark realises that it was the boy that called the police and screams that he will have his revenge. It fast forwards six months later and the boy is waking up one morning and is getting ready for college. He grabs some breakfast and walks out to his car, but when he sits in the front seat a gun is put to the back of his head and he is shot in the back of the head.

Together we decided to base our film on a mixture of two genres, these being dark comedy and action. Dark Comedies take a controversial or unethical topic and make it funny; our film takes the idea of murder and kidnapping and tries to put a humorous spin on it. We looked at other dark comedies and found that we were inspired most by the film Fargo, because it is a true story but also a sadistically funny film. We tried to make our film with a bit of action because we felt that these two types of film genres go well together. Our film doesn’t follow Todorov’s structural theory, what our film does is show the audience a future disruption before it shows the initial equilibrium. The film’s opening sequence follows Barthes Enigma code because it creates mystery to interest the audience. The camera work is similar to most other films; it has a range of shots including Close-ups, long shots, low angle shots and two shots. When it came to choosing costumes we found that normal, everyday clothing was all we needed because the film is set on an average day in the present time. The type of audio we used was a mixture of Diegetic and non-diegetic sound, this is because the film has a lot of dialogue, but because we didn’t want it to all be speech we included some songs. We used a sample of the song called "Super Sharp Shooter" by The Ganja Kru to fill some of the emptiness of the opening credits. The Song "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles has a build up which we used to show the rise in fear and stress when they realise that the body has gone missing from the boot of the car. A track called "Spektrum Ride” by Million Dan is used during the opening credits; it was used because of the drastic change of genre in the song. The Song starts as soft jazz but then breaks down into raw UK hip-hop; we used this song because it fitted the change of mood of the video footage. There are also two voiceovers from the boy that we used to introduce and then conclude the opening sequence.
Young adults (16-26 year olds) are the demographic that we would want to direct this media towards, this is because of how popular comedies and action films are among young people. The message that we would hope to send people with our film is that there is more to life than having to go to university. The audience for the film is more likely to be male rather than female because it contains more violence and coarse language that men would find more appealing.
The use of language in our film was mainly informal because the characters are criminals. The dialogue is crude and uses a lot of swearing.
I have learnt more about editing during the process of constructing my opening sequence. I have found that having more footage gives you the opportunity to pick the best bits of camera work that can give you a better chance of producing a good looking film.
After having to produce an opening scene to a film I feel that I have a better understanding of how to create an acceptable piece of media because of the amount of effort that was put in. What we learnt from our preliminary task was to include soundtracks and have more footage where we use a broader range of camera shots, because it makes the final piece appear more professional.

Fargo is a dark comedy based on a true story that is directed by the Coen Brothers. It stars William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi.

Big Nothing is Another dark comedy written and Directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea. it stars Simon Pegg and avid Schwimmer




How i Won the War is a Book written by Patrick Ryan, the Film is a dark comedy and was directed by Richard Lester. It stars Michael Crawford and John Lennon

Film Presentation

What i have chosen to do

what i have chosen to do for my final coursework piece is the moving image task. i picked moving image because i find filming and editing more interesting than constructing a magazine. it also is more closely linked to what i plan to do for a career, which is write for TV and Film, i also believe that i would enjoy it more in the long run

Film Preliminary Task

Preliminary Magazine

This is the Front Cover for my Magazine, it is called the Weekly Chew Because it is a weekly magazine about, mostly, the 6th form, but also parts of the school, for year 12's and 13's. the chosen Colour scheme is a copy of the school colours of red, white and green, i used to make sure that when people saw it they new it was linked with the school, also the brightness of the colours helps it catch peoples eyes when they walk past. the text used is century gothic, i used it because i thought it was clear but also infromal so that it seems more interesting to read. the Masthead of the magazine is a font called Journal from an independant website called dafont. This font was used to make it seem, again, less informal because of its caligraphic style. The slogan of the magazine is "the Best For 6th Form News" this is used to make people think that it could have useful information.




These are the Contents of my Magazine, as you can see it again fits the colour scheme of the school and it also has the same types of text for the title and the sub headings on the page. the writing and pictures are on a slant to make the magazine more teenager friendly. The slanting of the pictures and Text would not normally be seen in a more formal magazine like Mens Health. The layout of the contents page is basic, but it doesn't have to be sophisticated because it is only telling you whats on each page. I put the backgrounds of the text boxes in a colour pattern so that the page wasn't randomly laid out in colours that didn't match, i think that this makes the page seem more organized and more attractive to the viewer.