Watchmen - Alan Moore 1986/Zack Snyder 2009

When I think through our Group Project, only one thing goes through my mind. That is that not only do I want people to think of Sin City, Blade Runner, and Film Noir when they watch our opening, but next March when the legend to be Watchmen invades our screen on 03/06/09, suddenly everyone will go "So that's what inspired them."

So what is it? And why is it that I can safely bet most people reading this blog won't know what it is?

Watchmen is a comic book/graphic novel by esteemed writer Alan Moore and pencilled by artist Dave Gibbons. It was rated one of Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels and most comic book fans will tell you there is nothing that can challenge it. A single 12 part story arc set in a post-Vietnam America where Nixon is still president in 1985, where Nuclear War is on the brink and costumed heroes are banned. From the violent, vigilante detective Rorschach's first speech to the tremendous plot twists at the end the comic book world has not seen anything else of the sort. Heroes, with no powers, who have to fight for a better world. A genius with a plan to save humanity, a detective searching for the truth, a man who can move the very atoms inside him yet has nothing at all, an inventor longing for love. These characters are hardly the hero types, yet together it is up to them to stop something terrible from happening.

The reason this comic has inspired me in this project is through the character Rorschach (for a brief character analysis look at my group blog here). His concealing appearance, lack of morals, and general bad ass character make him such an amazing influence for both our protagonist and villain. He dresses like a film noir detective but rather than puzzling over problems will run into a building with a spray can and a lighter setting fire to policemen, or smashing a fellow prisoners head into a wall. He fights dirty, and that is why he wins. He understands the world far more than everyone else seems to simply because he sees its worst and lives to better that. I want to take all these aspects and use them to make our villain and hero have similar yet entirely different traits as we want part of our plot to be that at some time they may have been friends.

To finish off this brief review on how Watchmen has influenced our film opening I thought I'd leave you with the inspiration for our voice over, and the new trailer for Zack Snyder's 2009 film adaptation of this graphic masterpiece.

"Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985. :



























Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen it's true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"...
...and I'll look down and whisper "no."
They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father, or president Truman. Decent men, who believed in a day's work for a day's pay. Instead they following the droppings of lechers and communists and didn't realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don't tell me they didn't have a choice.
Now the whole world stands on the brink, staring down into bloody hell, all those liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers...and all of a sudden, nobody can think of anything to say."

Feelings about today's Location Reccy

Today myself and Simon went on a location reccy for our film opening, "The Streets Run Red". We initially set out to find an alleyway with some sort of high access so that we could get a master shot where we could zoom in from far away to establish the scene (once I have posted the final script and rough storyboard this will make a lot more sense). We thought an obvious place to search would be by car parks as these are often multi storey and so very high. We checked by the Quasar in Ponders End and the old car park by the old Enfield Town Library.

Starting early afternoon and finishing late evening, it was a very tiring day and I found it difficult to be patient as most of the locations we sought out were far from perfect. It took us a good hour to find our initial "Location 1" as named on the group blog. And even when we found this an hour of searching for an entrance to the car park ended up showing we would not be allowed to use this location. When we finally found "Location 3" and decided that after consulting with the group possibly we could change the script slightly as this location was perfect, I felt quite accomplished.

Today we also started our video documentary which we will be running throughout the course. We are taking digital stills and digital film of the entire process so that it will be easy for the examining board to see what we have been up to and also to make it more interactive for other students interested in the blog. From this so far I have learnt that we need to practice speaking in front of a camera and planning out what needs to be said as a lot of the video was hesitations and confusement!

All in all we had a successful reccy and it has only made me more excited about the upcoming project. I can't wait for the test shoot next week and finishing off the storyboards and scripting.

Now I'll leave you with a few of my favourite snaps from today;