Filiming and What We Have Done So Far (Aaron)

Mori and I have managed to gather up information on the exact format and the codes and conventions of our trailer in order to give the feeling of suspense and romance at the same time. The music has been decided to be created first hand so that we can alter what kind of music we need so that that we may enhance the approach of the emotions that run through smoothly and give a more sophisticated look to the trailer.

Recently, Mori and I filmed the rape scene as we are doing the shots on location rather than in sequence. This done in such an order as it is easier for us to organise the filming schedule amoungst the asctors and ourselves. This enabled us to use the actors at our dispense more efficiently as they too have similar projects to complete so we needed to work around there own schedule.

The shoot was a success and we have edited the scene and it is as exactly as we planned for.

Credits (Mori)

Today i am looking at different credits of films and how effective they are, this is useful research and will therefore help us analyse the best credit style and size and animation for our particular type of genre.
Once again i used The Final Destination to look at as it is the film which is closest to the genre of our film and therefore will give us the best idea of what is effective.

I find this title very effective, it has the blue smokey effect aound it giving it a sinister feel, but apart from that it is very simple giving audiences little to focus on other than the name of the film, this in turn would mean they will remember the name of the film and therefore go and see it is if they liked the trailer. Also having the first word 'The' on the top line, above 'Final Desination' adds extra emphasis on the second two words implying importance.
The effect added to this title is also very simple but effective, it is the tirle coming slowly towards the front of the picture gradually getting bigger.

This is the second film trailer i have been looking at, it is for the film 'Zombieland' which is a favourite of mine, i love the captions in this trailer, they have effects on them such as swinging down as if it was a sign or one letter falling off as if the sign was old and falling apart. In the screen shot to the right you can see that the caption 'This October' is made to look as though it is actually in the film judging from the shadow on the writing, i think this is very effective and looks very high budget. I thgink the only problem we may face in putting captions in like this is the fact that they are expensive and this film is actually although fairly scary a caomedy and therefore these effects may take away the tension and horror/mystery feel from out trailer.

This is a screen shot from the same trailer but it is another very well done caption, the title has been made and put onto this little world, the animation connected to this title is brilliant, it has a fair grounf fide swinging round ith this ball on the end of a craine sort of thing and then when the titlt comes into shot it all slows down to show the animation on the ball and the words in the title. I think this if possible to make a graphic aninimated title would be very effective but it may prove too epensive.

Filming (mori)

Last weekend Aaron and I started to film our trailer, we chose to do our most complicated scene, in terms of location, the scene at the beach is the hardest so we decided to get it done. It is the furthest away meaing that in order to do it correctly we needed to do it when we had a lot of time on our hands, therefore we did it on a sunday. This gave us plenty of time to get there to the exact location we yhad previously chosen. There are some difficult shots in this scene because she is on the edge of the cliff so we had to be very careful in making sure she didn't get too close to the edge and risk her safety, this meant we had to trick the camera. To do this we took shots from low angles so that you could see her body and only the ground she is standing on and then the sea in the rest of the shot making it appear as if Lucy our actor is closer to the edge and therefore the sea than she actually is. We also used close ups on the back of her head again witht he sea in the background to get the same effect. Also we used the syncronous sound well in this shot because we were very close to the sea we can hear the sound of the sea below, this is very effective as it makes the audience believe where she is more than she might and it also puts ideas in their head which the images may have already inspired, for instance her jumping off the cliff, this therefore adds a great deal of emotion and suspense tension which slowly builds through the trailer as this scene will be at both the beginning and the end of the trailer. We also used the sun to our advantage on this day, it was shining down fairly brightly but it was quite a clod day this meant lucy's face was lit up and the wind was blowing her hair back away from her face and the sea, all three of these factors helped us to get several great shots and i am confident that they will look effective and moving in the trailer.

Music (Aaron)

Through previous research and past experience, Mori and I have taken a keen interest and have become ever so obsessed with the music that we choose because the main reason why we feel the emotions that is intended in a movie is because of the music. We have used websites such as http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ to search the right copyright free music so that we can also aim to market this on you tube.

In the beginning we want the music to be sad, something that is calm and slow with the instruments including the violins or the piano or even both. As we progress into the middle, the music gets intense as so do the shots (attend to the Storyboard).

By doing so, we allow our emotions that we mean to portray in the movie be a success amongst the audience. The Music that we have been inspired by and wish to search a similar effect is Clint Mansell, Requim for a dream. This music allows us to create the emotional tension amoungst the audience that we want, this is mostly a tense and sad emotion with a mixture of excitement.

Company Research (Mori)

During the last lesson I have been researching different companies whihc we might want to use as our production company. This is very important because different companies do different types of films and have brand loyalties. For instance working title in the UK is know well for very British films which have many famous actors and actresses in them, thus attracting a large audience.

The companies I have been looking at are Universal Studios/Working Title and New Line Cinema. To help me decide what company would be the best for our genre of film and therefore type of audience i looked at the different types of movies they have made and how successful they have been. A group of films similar to our genre are the Final Destination Quadrology. They are 4 very successful films made about death and how people managed to defy it only for a while, and this is right down our street. The company which produced this was Working Title which is an off shoot of the huge Universal Studios which i think would be a good comapny t0 have to produce our film as it has a great brand name which people will regonise and therefore increase the size of the audience because the thought process would be, "If Universal Studio's produced this film then it is of a high budget and therefore has good scope to be good". Another good film which Universal Studios directed was The Skelton Key, this again is of a similar genre to ours, it is a thriller which is encouraging for us as people will associate good thrillers with Unviersal Studios.

The reason don't want to use Working Title Films is because it is a smaller off shoot of Universal and can therefore be interperated by audiences as a lower budget film. Also after looking at New Line Cinema I have noticed that especially recently the genres that they have been sticking to are fanasty and comedy which are two genres which we are not trying to represent in our film even though our film has a slight element of fantasy but we want to try and keep the films image away from this as we want it to try and seem as realistic as possible.

Actors (Aaron)

For our Characters, we thought it essential to pick up on the right face for the trailer and we needed tot make sure they fit the profile perfectly.

1. For our main Actress: Lucy Toomey - we thought that she would be perfect for the role as she has the facial expressions and her body language will describe the Character in the trailer.
2. For our Main Actress's best friend: Stef Nicole - we suddenly thought of Stef being the best friend simply because of her profound persona of her being very caring but also has very feisty looking expressions that will give someone support in order to put someone straight and this is what we are looking for in a best friend role.
3. For our Main Actress's Boyfriend: Jack Patterson - we needed someone who had a bit of a baby face but also could have the body language of someone who is strong and will do anything to protect a loved one.
4. For our Villains who commit a crime against Stef: Youseff Ahmed and Tom Holland - we realised that in order to make the perfect villain would be to have someone who would look the part but the paradox of someone who is not built but manages to rape a victim proves more shocking as the surprise of such an occurrence will gloom in front of the audience.

Music (Aaron)

As Mori had previously written that we had been doing some location shots, we have also been concerned about the music as previous research shows that the music is possibly one of the main reasons that alters the mood of the viewer's. I have proof of this as I recently attempted watching a scary film on mute. Hence we decided that the music has to be perfect, of course straight away we had ideas like "Breathe Me by Sia", we were going to use this in the beginning as we want to give a slow build in the trailer and as we gradually meet the middle everything goes a bit fast pace, suddenly in the last scene everything comes to a halt and slow music is played again. However, just like every production, a big "BUT" is put in front of you and you realise that you can only have copyright music being played.

Today's technology and the reliable internet came to our rescue when we found a site called freeplaymusic.com. We stretched our minds in search for the track only to realise that it is not ONE track but atleast THREE tracks we need. The perfect sounttrack is crutial to our finishing touches as the music will define the mood of the trailer and the whole concept of it .As we approach the first day of filming, the hunt for the perfect sountrack is on.

Location Preperation (Mori)

Today Aaron and I went around the school looking at the locations which we choose earlier and took pictures of them to see if they were what we wanted and how they looked like on a camera.

This picture to the left is where we are planning to have the scene of the dream in which the boyfirnd gets killed.

This picture is where we would like to have a shot on the way up to the cliff if we have enough time free in the trailer. I think it would be really effective to have someone on the horizon as the outline of the body would be very effective against the light sky like these trees.

The picture to the right is where we are planning to shoot the scene in which the main character tells the boyfriend and the best-friend that they are going to die and that she has to choose one of them. We thought this would be good as it means we can use shot-reaction-shot to keep the fast editing going and we can still use an establishing shot to show the audience the overall view.

The other locations we are planning to use are on top of a cliff for the first and last shot and in a street in Duffus Village for the murder scene, we have already decided these and have been out and looked at exact locations meaning we did not go out and take pictures of them today.

Storyboard (Aaron)

After long and hard thought Mori and I finally came up with a storyboard to go with whilst we are filming our Trailer. However, from previous experiance nothing goes to plan and so we intend to use the last couple of scenes somewhere else in the middle as opposed to the end.

Preperation for filming (Mori)

Equipment and actor list:

Female actrees to play the main part.

2 boys, one to play the boyfriend and one to play the boyfriends best friend in the scene (the dream) where he dies.

A female actress to play the best friend.

Two boys to play the murderers.

General clothing, casual clothing for actors and actresses in most scences and also school uniform for the scence in which the boyfriend dies. Hoodies for the two murderes to make them seem more dark and evil.

Tripod.

Camera.

Swivel chair for moving shots.

Locations:

Because we only need to show a few scences and major parts of the film to interest the viewers, this makes it easier to have fewer locations, these are the locations we have choosen to fiml our trailer at:

The school main drive - Boyfriends death

Duffus Village - Best friends death

Cliffs by the sea - First and last shots

Room in a boarding house - Where the main actress is telling her friends one of them will die.

Editing:

We want this trailer to be a non - linear trailer but at the same time follow a similar pattern to most action film trailers, which is fast and exciting with slower bits to add tension.

So we want our trailer to start slowly with a medium length shot lasting roughly 5-7 seconds and then slowly build up the speed of the editing, this will make the trailer more exciting and will hint to the audience that this will be a fast moving, intense and interesting film. We also want it to be fast as no to give away too much of the whole film otherwise we may fall victim to a trap lots of film trailers fall into, showing all the best bits of the film in the trailer. So for example in the murdering scene we want to show lots of very very fast shots, showing what is happening but not the details. We will then end the clip with a slow bit at the end which i found out in my research was very effective as after all the fast bits of the trailer it suddenly slows down and gives the audience that final bit of information which makes them really want to see what happens and often during this slow shot a question is posed by use of a voiceover.

Music/Sound:

We are going to focus greatly on sound for this trailer as i think it is one of the most important aspects of a trailer. A voiceover is going to be used on the first shot and during a small part of the dream, this is so that the viewers know a bit about the film but not too much, just enough to get them interested.

We want to have some slower depressing music to start the trailer in the dying scenes but as the trailers editing speeds up we want the pace of the music to echo that and thus giving a greater effect and therefore we will want the music to become more exciting as well. The music will build up until the last shot where is silence will fall and we will again here the same sounds as the very first shot, the diegetic sound of the sea. In this trailer we also want to have quite a bit of asynchronous sound especially in the murder scene as we don't want to show exactly what is happening as it will not only be too difficult to have fake blood and cuts etc. but it will also mean we are using the viewers most powerful tool, their mind which can create a far worse picture than we can. The screams will be heard but not seen coming from her mouth. 

Story Synopsis (Aaron)

After a long and hard think, gradually Mori and I came up with the idea that influenced us by watching the trailers of "Knowing" and "Final Destination". Both of us wanted to do something different and unique as we wanted that to be our unique selling point. In order for us to do that and also try and keep the storyline as close to school as it would create the perfect atmosphere and location shots would be easier to create, whereas if we had decided to make them adults, we would have to choose teenagers that looked reasonably matured or have to find teachers to play the role which would mean that our filming schedule would be complicated.


Our storyline asks the philosophical question, "Can you trick fate?". Our movie is called "Marie's Vision" or we are also thinking of an alternative "Fate". This is a story about a girl who has 2 sets of dreams out which she finds out that she has to choose between her long time boyfriend or her childhood best friend. She tries to save both of her close and loved ones but fails and dies herself in the process.

Both of us have tried to make the storyline as such so that instead of the audience asking us the question, we instead ask the question "Can you trick Fate?".. By doing so, we manage to put the audience in the hot seat.

Decision on genre (mori)

Over the last few days me and Aaron have been working hard on developing ideas and what type of film that we could develop a good trailer for. So we started to look at trailers of different genres. After looking closely at romance, horror, thriller and action we decided that a mixed genre would benefit us best as our film could target a wider market and therefore make a larger profit.   thought that romance would be fairly difficult with the resources that we have available to us, to create a good romance movie you usually need comedy which in turn requires at least a good pair of actors, which are hard to come by. A teen romance may be easier to do but it does not interest a large range of audiences, in fact it cuts off almost the whole of the adult market which would mean that it would be very hard to make the film successful unless it was a first rate film with a great advertising campaign. Horror and action would also be fairly difficult to do as most of the trailers for films of these genre's show some of the best bits which generally include expensive scenes with make up for dead bodies or special      effects for an explosion, we decided very quickly that this would simply be too difficult for us to do with our low budget and our limited time frame. We then started to think of genres which incorporated romance with action and mystery, we thought that although action will be difficult this type of film wouldn't require any special effects it would be more thrilling action. Also with these three genres in one film the potential market expands by a great deal meaning more chance for 'bottoms on seats' so to speak and therefore more chance for profit. The reason we added mystery into the films overall genre is because we think that it will set us apart from other films that are single track minded, it will help our film to develop a strong storyline and excite many more people. 

After having chosen this genre we started to make the storyline which Aaron will post on the blog. 

Research (mori)

After a healthy dose of swine flu I decided to get back to work, so over the last few days i have been researching trailers, i firstly looked at trailers normally, watching them and thinking about several different aspects of them, such as music, cinematography, length, actors shown and how much is given away. A trailer that i particularly liked was 'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen' so i decided to analyse it so that i could see what our trailer would need to be appealing, make someone want to watch the whole film and something which simply isn't boring.

Transformers 2

Michael Bay
This is a trailer for the film transformers 2 which is a sci-fi action film about large metallic aliens coming to earth to settle a feud. This is a trailer which is loud and big pictures, with many stunts and special effects being made use of, for example a transformer turning from an alien into a lorry while it is moving along at ferocious speeds. These special effects show potential audiences that it is going to be a high end production as well as an action packed on the edge of your seat film.

This is the second film in the series and the first Transformers was a great hit at the box office so they do not need to show too much of the storyline in the trailer as people will automatically link the special effects, stunning picture in the trailer and a great first movie with a good storyline in the second one. Also storylines in sequels tend to be fairly terrible in my opinion so they often try and keep the trailer short and show little about the story but more about the high production parts of the film which people loved so much about the first one. Also another bonus of this being the sequel is that people will recognise the stars of the film and remember them from the last film, this then makes it easier for the production company as they just have to show lots of them in the trailer which in turn will secure seats in the cinema, this is something which the Transformers 2 trailer used to great effect they have the two big stars in the film heavily involved in the trailer, one of them being Megan Fox.

In this trailer they do not use a voiceover they use actual dialogue from the film, especially the transformers voices which are very loud deep voices which make a impact on people watching, this also gives the trailer a bit more reality from the film and people get more a of a chance to not only see what it will be like but also hear what the film will be like as well.

Editing in this is very fast, not much is given away and as it gets closer to the end of the trailer the editing speeds up and as each new clips comes onto the screen a loud swoosh sound as if something narrowly missed hitting you is played, this gives the illusion that it is building up to something and adds suspense in that few seconds and then the name of the film appears in big writing by itself imprinting an image of that name in the audiences head.

I then looked at trailers in a slightly different way, i watched many trailers, especially horror trailers without sound. This suddenly made me realise how important the music is to a film. The music makes a horror scary, it makes you sit on the edge of the seat, it makes the tension build to an unbearable level and it means that what you are watching doesn't threaten your senses in more than one way as the only way you are taking in the media is through your sight.

A film which i watched that i really noticed the sound making the biggest impact on the viewing was 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind' a film with Jim Carrey and Kate Blanchet. In watching this trailer without the music it suddenly looks as though it is a piece of film done by an amateur because this trailer has a very high tempo like most do and therefore it just looks like a string of clips put next to each other with very fast editing, but when there is music the trailer turns into a brilliant one, it is fast moving the sound tells us that it is a strange but happy film through tempo matching the clips and some slightly strange noises in the music and words said by the characters. I also watched 'Transformers 2' without volume and what i noticed from this is that without the voiceover you cannot tell anything about the storyline. All of this made me realise how crucial a good soundtrack is to the trailer and maybe for certain types of trailers a voiceover is important to tell the potential audience what this film you want them to watch is about.

General View (Mori and Aaron)

This year both of us are going to attempt to create a trailer to our own storyline. This is part of our A2 coursework and we shall be sharing our research, progress and thoughts on the trailer.

Any comments or constructive criticism is much appreciated throughout the year.