Character reaserch

The family image we are trying to create at the beginning is a middle class English family with a young child called Ella. The father figure in the trailer is Patrick Rowe (my father) i believe he looks like an ordinary father who is caring and loving of his family. He also is middle aged and gives of the naive character look.

The mother for our trailer is Caroline Rowe (my mother) she is also a very believable mother character for our film and gives of a very friendly and almost vulnerable vibe to the audience. She cares very much fro her children but is more worried about t he welfare of her marriage than young daughter.

shot list

There are going to be a few main shots that we are going to use in our film as we want to make the audience feel part of the film and by using some basic shots but executing them well, we will be able to create a realistic film trailer. These shots are:

Extreme lose up - A close up shot of someones face to show the emotion in the film trailer. This is going to be useful in our film when we want to show how a character is feeling. Also, if we want to make something appear more dramatic, we would use this to emphasize an object or what someone is doing. 

Long shot - I am going to be using a long or extreme shot in  my film trailer when I want to show the different settings of my film which makes any particular buildings or surroundings that are well known to stand out such as a shot of London and the famous London Eye and so the target audience would pick up on this which would make our film trailer appear to be highly budgeted. 

High angle shot - I am going to be using a high angle shot in my trailer when there is a shot of a group of people around the table. The effect of this is that they are going to be happy and it is just going to look as if they are just living in a 'normal' and stress free life.

Close up - We are going to use a close up shot to show something in detail such as a shot that we are going to use of a car with a male character driving. This is going to create tension for the target audience and they are going to question who is the driver and what is his motive. 

locational research

This is the location from the beginning of the film with the family around the house. This is a semi detached house in a suburban town in England. This is a very typical house of a middle class family and therefore would connect with the target audience we intend for our film. There will shots of the young girl running down the path way from the door which will show how shes running away from the problems in the house and she wants to get away. 

The inside of the house is very homely and gives the impression that there is nothing wrong with the family life and all is well. however when the arguments start. there will be shots the the small girls perceptive in the house showing her anger and fear. The grand piano will give the idea that they like music and enjoy listening to the father play which could be seen as ideologic.

 

 



 

Story Board

Moodboard

This mood board highlights the scenes that our essential to our  trailer. For example our theme of movie will be based around a family and this is represented by the happy family being placed in the center enjoying an evening dinner together. The characters displayed at the top shows our character will consist of a young vulnerable girl, the father and the mother. The piano shows our dietetic sound tat is going to be included in our trailer to add tension and build up. The house shows our location that it is going to be set in which links with the dark figure that walks into the house unaware, adding enigmas.

Research and Planning Targets

Analyse the following focuses:  Mise en scene, Sound, Camera, Editing, Genre Indictors, Enigmas, Narrative and Characters, Unique Selling Points, Representation, Trailer Conventions and how the  target Audience is Addressed, Comparison to Other Trailers of the same Genre.

Aim to annotate print texts with detailed analysis using key media terminology.

Film Treatment

Our opening shot is going to be an image of a family all sitting around the table laughing and just having a proper family meal. We are having this as out first shot as we want to start of the trailer as if everything is 'normal' which is typical in most film trailers. As the trailer will go on, this is when the audience will start to see the changes of the mood in the trailer.

The next shot if going to be a shot of the husband and the wife exchanging awkward glances at each other across the table which would start to build tension for the target audience. This sets the mood of discomfort and causes the audience to question what is happening. This part of the story is that the male character that is playing the husband has killed someone and the wife if feeling very uncomfortable with it all but she is keeping it a secret and held together for her daughters sake.

The camera is then going to cut to some fast paced shots of the husband playing the piano and then to a close up of his hands on the keys. The idea of the piano would add an eerie atmosphere for the audience and would help to build tension, making it appear more realistic. We are going to use diegetic sound at this point when the husband is playing the piano and so the audience feel what the characters are feeling.

The camera cuts to an image of a broken plate on the floor that the wife has accidentally broken. The camera is going to then pan up to the wife's face to a close up shot of her face and the emotion that she is feeling. The audience are going to see her as scared and frightened. This is because the story of the film is that she is unsure and weary about what her husband will do to her when she has done something wrong as in the film, he has committed murder.

We are then going to add tension for the audience and let it build up by using the site incompetec to create our own soundtrack for our film trailer. By doing this we can experiment with different sounds and moods and test out which one would best fit our trailer.

The scene then cuts from the broken plate to husband and wife arguing which is when their little daughter appears in the doorway and as she calls, 'mummy?' The wife looks reluctant when the husband attempts to go near the daughter as she knows that he has killed someone. The daughter is unaware of what is going on around her. This is effective as the audience understand the vulnerability of the child and so they would want her to feel protected.

The camera cuts to the little girl running across the street, we are shown a close up shot of the husband in the car as he looks around worried for his daughter. There is then an extreme close up shot of the girls’ face as she screams as the father unaware of her present in front of him drives towards her which then fades to black not giving too much away. We cut to a missing poster of the little girl. This gets the enigmas starting for the audience such as what’s happened to her? Where is she?

It then juxtaposes to an establishing shot of London which is going to make the trailer look high budgeted for the target audience.

Film brainstorm

Title Research

Here I have researched the font "Lucida Sans". Due to our film being a thriller/action we wanted to make sure we followed the conventions of action titles to allow people to recognise our genre. Our title would be displayed in capital letters like a lot of action titles to allow it to be bold. As well as this in action films such as Taken 3 the letters are displayed slightly apart which makes the title stand out more. I then incorporated this title choosing a light grey colour and black background. This is successful in following codes and conventions of the genre as the silver/grey colour allows a sharp edge against the black ground and is still very traditional.

This font appealed to me due to the fact our genre is based on thriller as well as action. This is due to the thinner writing compared to the title above with thick and bold writing which has created more of an eerie and mysterious atmosphere, as well as being bold which is successful of an action. The perfect mixture of these two makes it much more effective if displayed in our trailer.

Finally, this thin writing gives off a more mysterious and sinister look compared to the other two which both contain action. This still contrasts with our trailer due to it being full of enigmas and cliff hangers therefore a more mysterious and eerie title can be effective.

Day 1 of Filming

On the 13th of October, we went on a boat in London and took advantage of the location and shot some establishing shot of London by night. We thought that these shots would be good establishing shots for the movie giving another dimension to the trailer and also allowing the audience to understand that the film would be expensive and high tech due to the locational variation.
Also the colors used from the wheel and the lights from the sky scrapers give a modern and flashy setting to conform to our target audience (15). These shots were taken on a I phone 5s and therefore are not going to be as good as some of the other shots that would have been taken on a better quality camera. The sound would also not be used as we are going to use non-dietetic sound to built suspense and tension.
We filmed some establishing panning shots that allows the audience to see the location and get a calm atmosphere. In the video above I managed to pan down from the London eye to the scenery ahead which let the audience see a wide area of the location. I also took a still shot of the London eye that we could use for the institution research. It helped me to understand what shots would work! Also some of the light were reflected on the the sea and created a very modern and scenic view.

Influence for production

Taken 3 is about a women who gets murdered in her ex husbands house and Liam Neeson, the main actor in the Taken movies tries to find the men who killed her. The director of the movie was Olivier Megaton and he uses fast editing to create that tension and fear which we want to give to our audiences. Also the setting in the home allows us to get an idea of what key lighting we can use in the house to create that even though this movie is an action/thriller we wanted to incorporate that thrill you get when watching movies like this. At the beginning of the film the non dietetic sound is quite eerie and mysterious, making the audience feel tense. Although everything that is happening is relaxing and calm. This is the effect we want to have at the beginning of our trailer as we think it would be successful at getting the audience on the edge of their seat.

Soundtrack Reaserch

For our film I decided to research some soundtracks to help me decide which type of soundtrack would be the best for our genre. I was looking for a soundtrack that starts of calm, gradually building up creating tension for the audience, reaching a climax when there appears to be a dead body in the house. Researching soundtracks also inspires me to what type of instruments would be most suitable for our film for example, in our film we knew a piano would be suitable as it is successful as creating an eerie and tense atmosphere which is what our group wish to succeed.

Even though our trailer is going to be a drama, I decided to research music from action trailers as I believe this will make our trailer seem more dramatic. I have found some soundtracks that I would like my trailer to incorporate. This is the soundtrack from the trailer 'Taken'. At the beginning of the track it involves the diegetic sound of a piano which is very similar to our opening trailer. It provides a fairly innocent atmosphere which for our trailer would make the young girl seem very vulnerable, however the music begins to become more upbeat which is effective as it helps lead the story that something bad is about to happen. The slow, calming introduction would be complimented by slow paced shots of the flashback in the girls life, which will help make everything seem neutral, however when it becomes more up beat that's when we will begin to see the troubles of the girls life, with the editing of the shots becoming much faster creating suspense for the audience.

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html

The advantages of last year was that we knew a useful website that contained a variety of non copy right music to help get an insight into what would fit our piece. The first stage of this process is to choose what type of feel we wanted and we chose: Dark, Eerie, Intense, Unnerving, Mysterious. After listening to many results we came across "Controlled Chaos" where the instruments include synths and percussion. This year we are going to use two separate soundtracks and combine them together to create the perfect piece for our trailer. From this soundtrack the bit that is most appealing and suitable for our trailer begins at 1 minute as that is when the music becomes much more unnerving and begins to build up to create suspense. The unnerving quality is important for our group as it is not a horror therefore we aren't looking for a frightening soundtrack to scare the audience, instead we are looking for a mysterious soundtrack to make them feel uncomfortable and uneasy from the tension. However, the negatives of this soundtrack is that it doesn't seem to reach a climax which is what we look for in our trailer however the up paced soundtrack would fit perfectly in our trailer.

The second soundtrack we found of the website was called "Awkward Meeting" and appealed to me due to the instruments including piano and synths. The piano, being essential to our trailer. It begins with a slow rhythm of the piano, creating a calm atmosphere. As the soundtrack progresses we get a low beat added into the rhythm every few seconds which creates more of a dark atmosphere and can connote that everything is not fine. The silence in between each piece is effective where the music becomes quieter until it fades to silence, this will fit well with the flashback where we are fading in and out of black going through the girls life. The soundtrack then becomes louder and a it more paced, this is successful as it would be easier to blend in with "Controlled Chaos" which is a loud, up paced soundtrack overall.

Shot type

Shot Reverse Shot- Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. since the actors are shown looking in different direction's the viewer assumes they are looking at each other.The shot-reverse shot is a form of continuity editing. It establishes both temporal and spacial continuity. It is common for a shot-reverse shot dialogue between two characters to be consist of shots taken from over the shoulders of the characters, but it must not violate the 180 degree rule.

Shot reverse shot is used all the time in films, however they could not be used in live interviews as there is only one camera used, if there was two then the cameras would be in shot the whole time. In films the shot would be filmed several times.

180-degree rule- The 180-degree rule of shooting and editing keeps the camera on one side of the action. As a matter of convention, the camera stays on one side of the axis of action throughout a scene; this keeps characters grounded compositionally on a particular side of the screen or frame, and keeps them looking at one another when only one character is seen onscreen at a time. The technique allows for an expansion of the frame into the unseen space offscreen. It is referred to as a rule because the camera, when shooting two actors, must not cross over the axis of action; if it does, it risks giving the impression that the actors' positions in the scene have been reversed.

Match on action (or cutting on action) is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot.
This creates the impression of a sense of continuity – the action carrying through creates a “visual bridge” which draws the viewer’s attention away from slight cutting or continuity issues.
This is not a graphic match or match cut, it portrays a continuous sense of the same action rather than matching two separate things.

Institution Reaserch

20th Century Fox is a film corporation which is one of the 6 major American film studios. Some of the most successful films created by 20th Century Fox are: Avatar/ Star Wars/ Speed & The Chronicles of Narnia. The majority of popular and successful films that 20th Century Fox created are Comedy an Family genre films, for example: Alvin and the Chipmunks/ Doctor Do-little/ Night at the Museum and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. As I am producing a action film I have to research weather 20th Century Fox would be a suitable Institution to Produce my film with. Although 20th Century Fox prefer to make Comedy/ Fantasy and Family films because the seem to be the most profitable films. When it comes to Action films, 20th Century Fox prefers to distribute them rather than produce them, so if I was to pick 20th Century Fox as the best intuitions for my film I would get them to distribute my action film worldwide.

Warner Bros is another one of the main film studios based in California and New York. Warner Bros Is a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of creative content and their related businesses, across all current and emerging media and platforms. Some of the most popular films created by Warner Bros Fox are: Harry Potter(Producers & Distributors), Valentine’s Day(Distributers), Sex and the City(Distributers), The Hangover(Producers & Distributers), The Dark Knight(Producers & Distributors) and Slumdog Millionaire(Distributors). Warner Bros Produce and Distribute a variety of films in different genres, from Comedy, Romance, Fantasy, Adventure, Action and Horror. Warner Bros are dedicated to producing a variety of films to suit different type of audience and in my case most of my favorite film have been made my Warner Bros. To help me with my research on what institution would suit best to create my Action film I have to research what horror films Warner Bros have created and weather they were successful or not. 20th Century Fox like to mainly focus on the same genre films that give them more success (Comedy/Fantasy/Family) on the other hand Warner Bros Like to experiment with different genres and attract a wider variety of viewers. The list of well-known film Warner Bros has produced and distributed is much longer than the 20th Century Fox list, which means if I was to choose between the two on which would be more suitable to produce and distribute my film with is Warner Bros as they have more experience with action Genre which means they would make better success out of my film.

  Universal Pictures also called Universal Studios one of the six major movie studios. Universal Pictures creates and distributes theatrical and non-theatrical filmed entertainment. Universal has achieved both popular success and its recent Academy Award winners: Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, King Kong, Brokeback Mountain, Ray, A Beautiful Mind, The Pianist, and Lost in Translation. Like 20th Century Fox, Universal Picture prefer to create films focus on Drama, Romance and Adventure, such as the films listed above. The reason most of their films are based around this genre is because those genre films are their most successful and they prefer not to risk creating other genres out of their comfort zone and for than film to them fail. After doing that background research I now need to research what Universal Pictures is like when making action film. I need to know weather they have made many successful action films or is it one of their weaker points. If I was to choose which institution out of the ones I have researched (20th Century Fox / Warner Bros & Universal Pictures) would be more suitable and experience to produce and distribute my action film is still Warner Bros.

Target Audience final

No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. In a rating 15 film the audience may see any of the following:

•   strong violence
•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
•   portrayals of sexual activity
•   strong verbal references to sex
•   sexual nudity
•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   discriminatory language or behaviour
•   drug taking 

At 15 sexual activity can be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. Some sex scenes can be quite long at this category. Though nudity may be allowed in a sexual context there will usually be no strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context. There can be strong references to sex and sexual behaviour, but especially strong or crude references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Sex and sex references are treated the same irrespective of sexuality. 

Our film is going to have some violence in it and maybe some swearing which i9s why we are thinking of making the film a 15. 

Target Audience

18 age rating

Films rated 18 are for adults. No-one under 18 is allowed to see an 18 film at the cinema or buy / rent an 18 rated video. No 18 rated works are suitable for children.

18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as:

•   very strong violence
•   frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***') and / or very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’)
•   strong portrayals of sexual activity
•   scenes of sexual violence
•   strong horror
•   strong blood and gore
•   real sex (in some circumstances)
•   discriminatory language and behaviour 

There is no limit on the number of uses of strong (e.g. 'f***') or even very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’) which can be passed at 18. Uses could be aggressive, directed, frequent or accompanied by strong violence. There may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory language at 18, and the work could explore themes relating to discrimination.
Although part of our film would conform to these conventions, we do not this the circumstance go to these extremes and therefore would not need to limit off the 15-18 age range.

Target Audience

PG rating

PG stands for Parental Guidance. This means a film is suitable for for most people of different ages, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. A PG film should not u[set or make a child feel uncomfortable for a child aged around eight or older

 Some films are given a PG certificate but have not been made with a young audience in mind. A recent example of a film mostly enjoyed by grown ups but passed PG would be Saving Mr. Banks.  A PG film will not contain any theme which is inappropriate for a child. PG works can explore challenging issues such as bullying, bereavement or racism. There may be mild bad language (such as ‘shit’ or ‘son of a bitch’) in a PG film, but the context and delivery are always important. For example, if the language is used aggressively or if there is a great deal of bad language, a work may be passed at a higher category.

Again i do not believe that this kind of rating would suit my film as we are looking to include content that would make the audience feel exited and scared about what will happen to the actors. We are also looking to include stories of families that could be seen as harmful to audiences of a young age who would not like it. 

Target Audience

U rating 

The U symbol stands for Universal. A U film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. However, it is impossible to predict what might upset a particular child, especially at this lower end of the category range. They rate films and videos aimed at very young viewers, such as Chuggington or Tinga Tinga Tales, U. However, they give them special BBFCinsight stating they are ‘particularly suitable for pre-school children’. Films or videos with this BBFCinsight should raise no significant issues in terms of discrimination, drugs,, imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, threat or violence. Violence will generally be very mild. A U film may include brief fight scenes or moments where characters are placed in danger. However, moments of emotional stress or threat will be quickly resolved and the outcome will be reassuring. There may be brief scary scenes and moments where the characters are placed in danger. As with violence, however, these scenes will be balanced by reassuring elements, such as comic interludes or music. ‘Baddie’ characters may carry or use weapons, but there will be no emphasis on these. Child or ‘hero’ characters are unlikely to use any kind of weapon outside, for example, historical settings. This would denifantely not be appropriete for our film. 

Target Audience

12A and 12

Films classified 12A and video works classified 12 have material that only 12- or younger can go and see and if they are 12 they can watch it with an adult. Adults planning to take a child under 12 to view a 12A film should consider whether the film is suitable for that child. 
As our group are going to do an action film, i do not believe that this age group would be a very good audience as we want it look look slightly more threatening and thrilling than this young audience. Also some of the themes in our film would not be age appropriate so to make it for this audience we would have to make the themes more child friendly