Research into Crime / Detective plot lines

Before deciding on what is going to happen in our two min opening scene, me and my group thought that it would be a good idea to do a little bit of research into the other Crimes / Detectives plot lines. What similarities and differences do thay have? What type of characters are there? What is the main topic that the film in base around e.g. money, drags ect.?


The Dark Night

"Set within a year after the events of Batman Begins, Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and new district attorney Harvey Dent successfully begin to round up the criminals that plague Gotham City until a mysterious and sadistic criminal mastermind known only as the Joker appears in Gotham, creating a new wave of chaos. Batman's struggle against the Joker becomes deeply personal, forcing him to "confront everything he believes" and improve his technology to stop him. A love triangle develops between Bruce Wayne, Dent and Rachel Dawes." Written by Leon Lombardi Provided by IMDb




Goodfellas

"This film views the mob lives of three pivotal figures in the 1960's and 70's New York. Henry Hill is a local boy turned gangster in a neighborhood full of the roughest and toughest. Tommy Devito is a pure bred gangster, who turns out to be Henry's best friend. Jimmy Conway puts the two of them together, and runs some of the biggest hijacks and burglaries the town has ever seen. After an extended jail sentence, Henry must sneak around the back of the local mob boss, Paulie Cicero, to live the life of luxury he has always dreamed of. In the end, the friends end up in a hell of a jam, and must do anything they can to save each other, and stay alive." Written by formica97@aol.com Provided by IMDb

Similarities
- Both films contain the mob and a main character working with or for them.
- There is a thin line draw in both film between good and evil, The main character breaking the law steeling money to get them self a better life and the Batman who breaks the law to do good.
- Both films show money trafficking.


Differences

-  In the Dark Knight there is a love triangle.
- The Dark Knight show the police or law enforcers combating agains the mob or law breakers.
- The Goodfellas main character all work with or for the mob.

Key Characters
- Mob or criminal group

- One character who breaks the law (Evil character)
- Another character who some times breaks the law to go good and stop the crime. (Good character)
- Police or a law enforcers 


Topics / Themes / Ideas
- Getting a better life
- Money 
- Good Vs Evil (right vs wrong)
- Conflict
- Morals


I feel that this have help me to understand what is need from a plot for a film to have a real good story line and therefore a good opening, as you need to know where the film is going to know hoe to start the film. I will take what I have learnt from this into my opening sense and develop upon this to create repetition, variation and familiarity.


If I did this again I would like to do more that 2 films and films that are close together in time. The reason I decided to do film the had a time gap was, that I thought it would show how film had developed. However what I how found is that I don't need to see how film have develop but to can I develop them from past film. So to do that i need to look at film that are close together in time be use close to today.