Research and Planning: Torture Scene/Poster Ideas

Research and Planning: Weather Forecast

• This is the weather forecast for the week.
• We now plan to film on Saturday inside as the weather looks to be bad.
• We could film the last outside 'running scene' on Sunday maybe if the weather is clear.

Research and Planning: Script

• Today we wrote a script for the Newsread scene

• This is the dialogue that will be said by a voice-over just before the Newsreader comes on screen:

'Teenage Girl Missing Tagged in Torture Scene'

• This is the dialogue that will be read out by the Newsreader:

Louise Smith, a 17 year old girl, has been missing for over 48 hours and just a few hours ago her friend, Sarah Conrad, was tagged in an explicit photo of the young girl being tortured on the social networking site, Facebook.

Research and Planning: Actor Release Form

• Here is the actor release form for our actress, Angela, who we chose to be our Newsreader.

Research and Planning: Production Meeting

• This weekend, my partner and i met up to purchase some items for our 'torture scene'. 
• We got the rope, masking tape and fake blood. We used my chair as a prop and Chloe's t-shirt for the actress to wear, which we made blood-stained, with bits of mud and a few rips to make it more realistic.

• We waited till it was dark and then went to the stables, where Chloe has a horse. She asked the owner if we could use their workshop to film in. We thought this would be the perfect mis-en-scene for our trailer as it had equipment like saws and drills.

• We tied Georgia, the actress, to the chair using the masking tape, and placed the rope in her mouth and tied it round her head, so she looked like she was being gagged. 
•  We kept in mind the cinematography, getting all the different shot types we need and filming from all different angles.

Here is a picture of Georgia in action:

Research and Planning: Location Recces

• Here is a video of the location where we filmed the torture scene.
• We had the saws on display on the wall in the background
• We placed the ladders and cardboard boxes on the ground around near where the actress would be sat, for effect.
• The drill we used for sound in the background

Research and Planning: Shot List

This is the shot list for the 'torture scene'...

Research and Planning: Animated Storyboard

This is my animated storyboard, where you can see what kind of shots and the length of time they will appear on our trailer.

Research and Planning: Publication Plan

This is the publication plan for my magazine.

Publication Plan on Prezi

Research and Planning: Final Draft Storyboard

Research and Planning: Poster Draft

• This is my poster draft.
• I got ideas from the research i did, where i found that there are a lot of posters which include a big close up of a persons face looking scared.
• This is a good idea as it would catch the audience's eye

 

Research and Planning: Magazine Draft

Research and Planning: Analysis of Film Magazines

• The genre of this 'Empire' magazine front cover is horror. You can tell by the dark background and the low key white lighting coming from the lamp and the house. This shows that there would probably be something mysterious in the building.

• We can see the silhouette which adds curiosity to the film. The man looks wary of going into the house, as we can see all of his posture by the long shot.
• There is a quote from the film 'The Exorcist' placed above the title, which says 'The Power if Christ Compels You!' This hints that there is good and evil within the film.

•  The genre of the front cover of this magazine is horror. It isn't the typical horror magazine you would expect because the background colour is white. But this is a bed, which can sometimes be associated with the genre.
• The film featured is the well known 'Paranormal Activity', which is known for it's viral marketing.
• Customers would be drawn to this front cover as there is a girl looking scared and screaming pictured. As well as a man looking quite mysterious, even a little scared too, so the audience will want to know what the film is about.
• The colour scheme is red, black and white - conventional horror colours.

Research and Planning: Meeting

• Me and my partner arranged to meet over the weekend so we could do a little more research. 
• We did this by watching some A2 Media Studies teaser trailers on You Tube that other students over the UK have produced over the years. 
• This made us re-think our idea and we thought of changing the plot slightly, making it more interesting. 
• We decided to carry on with our original plan; however, add more bits to it, to produce a higher grade trailer.

Research and Planning: Actor Release Form

• Here is the actor release form for our main character, Georgia. 

Research and Planning: Cast Auditions

• This is a screen grab of an advertisement that i put on Facebook to look for potential cast, and a advert we put up around college to grab auditionees:

• Here is the people that auditioned, with good and bad points as to why we may have, or not chosen them to star in our teaser trailer:

• This is Sancha. We thought that she might be a good idea for our actress as she has dark hair. This would go well with our horror genre.
• The bad points is the fact that her hair isn't too long as she has recently had it cut. 
• Sancha doesn't go to our college, so she wouldn't be as available as we like her to be.

• This is Naomi. We thought she could have a variety of looks for the film, but the availability of her just wasn't enough for what we wanted.

 

•  This is Georgia. We decided to pick her to be our leading actress.
•  This is because she is generally the better actress of who we auditioned.
•  We think she has a great look about her aswell, for both the everyday look, and the horror look.

Research and Planning: Micro Element

For our teaser trailer, i am in charge of the editing, and we are both involved in cinematography and the sound.


Here is a list of all the ideas for editing transitions i have at the moment:

• Typewriter font for the facts, to add effect to the trailer as it is a computer-based film.
• Fade in and out black - this will be at the start when the trailer cuts from the facts and the Facebook photographs, which will give a professional look
• Wipe to show the passing of time
• Jump cut - to show that the character is going a bit mad
• Fast pace straight cuts - for the last bit of the film after we see the title.

This is the list of our ideas for cinematography:

• Zoom in on the image of the scratched out face
• Zoom out to girl at the computer

• Point of view medium shot of girl
• Close up's - facial expression and the screen
• Midshot profile's - Show body language
• Long shot of the screen - where we see the shadow there, and not there.

Here is our ideas for what sound would be included in our trailer:

• For non-diagetic sound, we have got inspiration from the song by Kings of Leon - Closer. We are going to re-create parts of this song by using Garage Band.
• We will use diagetic off screen sound of a dial-up tone for the start of the trailer, and a disconnected sound for near the end of the trailer.
• There will also be diagetic on screen sounds of screams and deep breaths.

Research and Planning: Plan for the Week

Today i analysed a film poster and made a blog about the conventions of a film poster.


For the rest of the week i am going to start researching film posters so that i have a few ideas of what i might do. Also, i will put my finished draft storyboard, which is made from camera photographs, onto my blog.

Reserach and Planning: Conventions of Film Poster

Here is the conventions of a film poster:


- Big, bold title, which is the biggest
- Tag line, underneath the title
- Stars names

- Director/Producer
- Main picture
- Dark background
- Date
- Certificate

- DVD or cinema etc.

Research and Planning: Analysis of Film Poster

Here is the film poster i will be analysing:




Genre
You can tell that this is a horror film straight away, as the background is complete black, with the only light from the outline of the character on the right, and the girls face is lit up the same colour, to show the relationship between the two.


Narrative
You can tell the story through this poster because of the title of the film, 'When a Stranger Calls', as well as the picture of the girl with a worried expression on her face, holding a mobile phone.

Media Language/Layout
The title is at the top, conventionally. There is a close up of a girl on the left side, almost covering up the entire poster, so that we see her facial expression and relate to that. There is a long shot of the silhouette on the right to show he is not a nice character, which we can tell from the way he is stood.

Audience
The audience of this film poster would be people that are interested in the horror genre, and into technology because of the mobile phone pictured with the girl. They would like the suspense as to who is on the other side of the phone and who is the mysterious male character.


Representation
The poster represents typically the story of a female victim and a male villan.

Research and Planning: Draft Storyboard

Research and Planning: Props List

This is my first ideas and cost of the props we will be using for our teaser trailer.

Research and Planning: Equipment/Software List

This is a list of all the equipment and software i am going to need for my project:


- Video camera
- Microphones
- Lighting
- Imac
- iMovie
- Final Cut Express
- GarageBand
- Photoshop




All of these things are available from college.

Research and Planning: Progress

In my lesson today, we have created a first draft storyboard for our teaser trailer. The outcome was that we have slightly changed our initial idea. We decided to make the story a little simpliar, by just having the start bit of our idea for our whole trailer, and just expanded it. It would be very jumpy, the editing would be very thought out, and the music would make it catchy, which would make want people to watch the film.

Research and Plannng: Production Schedule

This is my production schedule for the next few months. It shows what i have done already, and my plans for what i am going to do in the upcoming weeks, and how long it will take to complete each task.

Research and Planning: My October Podcast

Research and Planning: The Meeting

• Me and my group, which consists of Chloe, had a meeting where we discussed which roles we would have. We decided that i would edit, Chloe would be in charge of the mis-en-scene, and we would both take control of cinematography and sound.
• Already we have initial ideas of a name for the film - 'Offline', which relates to the nature of the film around Facebook.
• As well as this, we did some research, by going to the cinema separate from the class, to watch the film based around Facebook, 'The Social Network'. We thought we may be able to gather some ideas from this film; however, we found out that it was not at all like we would want our film, as our idea is a horror.

Research and Planning: Cinema Trip

Me and my class went on a cinema trip and watched the horror film 'Buried'. It was a good film and tied in with my teaser trailer idea, as they are both horrors.

Research and Planning: Sound Test

• Here is a sound test where me and my partner did an example for the genre 'Comedy'.

• We browsed the different sounds and music that could appear in a film.

Research and Planning: Treatment

This is my first treatment for my teaser trailer:

• There would be a computer screen looking like the Facebook website, with facts and figures about Facebook, interspersed with images of people having a good time. The facts will become more and more negative about how people are harassed and even bullied on social networking sites.
• Theme made non-digetic music, which is catchy and popular, maybe slow, scary, child-like to start off with, and begins to get faster throughout.
• The computer screen then goes to black, and the words 'offline' shows up (which is an idea for the title of the film). It then cuts to a girl at her computer, wondering what has happened to the screen, which suddenly reappears with one notification from Facebook, it reads 'your worst nightmare has tagged a photo of you'. The picture includes her and her friends, but with her face either scribbled out, or an image of how she going to die.
• It then cuts to a scene in a busy internet cafe, where there is a different girl, who gets the same notification, and this time the picture is of her at present. She is looking around, wondering who could of took this picture. The camera would be boxing her in and making her look issolated, with lots of high angles.

Research and Planning: Target Audience

• My target audience will be a young age group; for example, 16-24
• The gender would probably be mostly males; however, some females who like the horror genre, girl-next-door type, or like the idea of Facebook being involved in my film.
• The psychographics of my audience would be students of all middle or working class, who may have a part-time job; therefore, they will have time and money to actually go to the cinema to watch films with friends. They could shop in vintage shops and ones like 'Urban Outfitters'. They would be positive, open to new things, want to explore and get as many experiences as possible.
• They might be interested in social networking, like to socialise, maybe like to listen to RnB music, and who may like to learn morals from the film. They would like the thrill of the suspense in my film and won't be too affected by the issues raised (e.g. the torture scene).
• The audience will need to be passive for my film.

Research and Planning: The Pitch

• This is my pitch i did on Powerpoint Presentation, where i have done slides where i presented my 'Research', 'Ideas', the 'Cinematography' i thought about, and 'How my Ideas Linked to my Ancillary Task'.

Research and Planning: Audience Feedback

The results of my questionnaire are as follows:


1. What is your gender?



2. What is your age?
3. What type of genre film do you watch?

4. What aspects of a trailer grab you?

- High action
- Funny quotes/scenes x2
- The music and the actors/actresses x3
- The scary bits and difference
- Cinematography
- Editing
- A new idea

5. How long do you think a teaser trailer should be?

6. What do you like featured in a horror film?

- Jumpy/ Fast pace x2
- New/Good idea x2
- Killer x2
- Mystery to work out
- Makes you think its real
- A twist
- A small plot giveaway
- Scary music
- Slow camera movement

7. What do you think about the age certificate on films?
- Sometimes effective
- Helps regualte films x2
- There should be an age certificate as some films are not suitable for children. I dont think teenagers would abide by the certificate though.
- When a horror film is an 18, it shows that it must be more scary.
- The best horrors are an 18.
- A 15/18 certificate should be on horrors x3
- It all depends on what type of film it is.

Research and Planning: The Test

• For our test, me and three others worked together to produce this chase scene which would of been part of a film.
• We each had our own roles, for example; two actors, cameraman and a director. I had the role of the actress, who was the character being chased.
• I liked this role as i felt i had a lot of involvement towards the film. I could also put across my input if i had any ideas what i thought i should do while filming.
• When we got all what we thought we needed, we got into pairs and started editing it. We did this by erasing out any clips we didn't want, and inserted non-digetic music for the background and digetic sounds of footsteps etc.

Research and Planning: Conventions

The coursework this year will give me more of a challenge compared to last year where i produced a front cover, contents page and double-page spread.


A teaser trailer should be around 30 seconds long, no more than 90. It gives an idea of the plot but doesn't give the whole story away. They are usually fast paced and leave the audience wanting to see more.


Here is an example of what i think is a good trailer; however, it would be almost impossible to work towards, because of the such high budget, props and the face that it is too realistic.





Here is another example of a good teaser trailer that i would like to strive towards. I think this would be possible to get ideas from and work towards the high quality and editing:







The conventions of a teaser trailer:

• Production/Distribution Company
• Slogan
• Date
• Music
• Voice over
• Stars/Director/Producer
• Part narrative
• Text

The conventions of my selected genre - horror:

• Fast pace
• Action
• Low Key lighting
• Shadows
• Screaming digetic sounds
• Explosion digetic sounds
• Child like non-digetic sounds
• Closeups
• Flashing images
• Weapons
• Blood

Research and Planning: Audience Theories

The Hypodermic Syringe Model -  Messages are injected straight into the brain.


Cultivation Theory - Assumes we are brought up to think a certain way by the media.


Desensitisation Theory - As we get older we become less affected by issues.


Copycat Model - This theory is assuming that we copy things off the media, but there is no evidence to support this.


Uses and gratifications Theory - This means that we take from the media what we want and seek our own pleasure.

Research and Planning: Analysis of Teaser Trailer 2

Media Language

• This teaser trailer starts with a few images of dark, dull, long shots of worn down buildings. All of a sudden, you hear breathing, and a slight echoey, underground-like sound. A person comes running out from the right side, and the camera cuts sharply to many different shots and angles of the dark outline of the character; mid shots, long shots, eyeline and low angles.
• Then a car comes up behind the man, as he is looking back, and they are getting closer and closer. He runs to one of the buildings that we saw pictured at the beginning, and the men in the cars quickly exit their vehicles and chase after him; however, he must of locked the doors as they can't get into the building.
• We see fast pace camera movent and shots, of all the characters' facial expressions, all with low key lighting, which is almost hard to figure out what is happening on screen.
• In contrast to all the fast pace, we then see a shot of a male character lighting what looks like a big fire ball, maybe even in slightly slow motion. This is the first bit of light we see and it is very bright, which suggests it is getting interesting.
• The sound becomes louder as we hear smashing and shouting.
• As we are about half way through the trailer, there are subtitles for the film, 'From Producer Michael Bay'. This is in red font and a black background, which shows exactly what genre the film is -Horror.
• There is a non diagetic sound after this clip, of a gun shot. The sound then replicates after each scene that follows. I think this adds effect and shows the continuity on the film. Within this, is a woman telling a story of a reoccuriung dream she is having, with images popping up to go with this.
• We then see a wipe, and there is 'Elm St' pictured on what looks like a street sign. There is non diagetic music at this point of child-like music, which we also heard in my first teaser trailer i analysed. As this is playing, we see shots of the street with only light from a street lamp and an image of a distant house. We then see the house closer up, with inludes shadows, making it look scary. We then see a scene with thousands of candles lit on the floor.
• There are many other images fading in and out, of different things, juts hints of what is in the film, to get the tension from the audience built up, for them to want to watch it and be wondering what is going to happen. There are close ups and mid shots to show the expressions. There are tracks,
• One clip is where a male says, 'Don't fall asleep'. We then see a scene of a girl in her bed and someone trying to get her to wake up.

Research and Planning: My September Podcast

Research and Planning: Analysis of Teaser Trailer 1

Media Language

• The trailer starts with non-digetic sound - slow, recognisable music.
• There is then a blue, computer-like screen, with typewriter font saying 'Everyday 2 billion cellphones ring...' with digetic off screen sound of a phone's buttons being pressed, an then and engaged-like sound.
• There is then a clip of two females who are looking at a mobile phone on the other side of the room, which the camera tracks from the characters to the phone. It is close-up and central of the camera, and the women become in the background, blurred.
• There is the another shot of the computer-like screen, reading 'Sometimes you answer the call...' the eclipse meaning that there is more they want to get across.
• Then, there is a quick clip of the mobile phone opened and a voice-over, 'you have one new message', which reflects the title, 'One Missed Call'.
• The words on the computer then say ,'and sometimes you shouldn't'. This font suddenly gets close up and the center of the writing becomes bigger.
• This is closely followed by a scream and two clips of different girls on the phone. The words 'its your voice, its you, dying' is voice-over which creates the impression that that is what they heard on the phone.
• The music then changes to what sounds like the instrument, triangle, it sounds quite freaky and like a child's toy. The camera then follows the girl who was told it her voice, to what she sees and fast-pace editing which builds suspense.
• The trailer goes on with continuous fast editing, with the screen going to black and fading back in, which makes it unclear to see.
• About three quarters way into the trailer, we hear the same child's toy-like music for a short time, then, there is a big flash of something, to make the audience jump, and we hear the digetic sound of the long scream of the main character.
• The words 'what will it sound like' come up, which is obviously referring to the scream we just heard. Then 'when you die?' There is extremely fast pace editing of many different angles, shots of how you could die, like explosions and weird creatures. The music now is like drums - fast.
• Then the screen goes black and the child toy-like music comes back with the computer screen and words reading the title 'One Missed Call'.
• There is then a five second scene of a man getting severly pushed back and into nowhere as well as screams from the girl. The date of when the film is out is then shown and subtitles and a website.

Audience

• The target age of this film i think would be 15+
• I think this film is aimed at both genders, but more so males because it is stereotyped that males are into the gruesome and violence of horrors.
• I imagine that the people that enjoy this film would be intelligent because they have to work out what is happening in the story. Also people who like the suspense and build up, and enjoy the thrill and intensity of the film.

Research and Planning: Regulation

The current BBFC system is:

- Uc (Universal: Children) This is suitable for all, but particularly for young children below the age of 8.

- U (Universal) This is suitable for all ages.

- PG (Parental Guidance) Generel viewing, however some scenes might be unsuitable for children under the age of 8; therefore, parents are advised to watch the film beforehand.

- 12A (12 Accompained) Suitable for ages 12 and over, unless they are accompanied by an adult.

- 12 Ages 12 and over.

- 15 Ages 15 and over.

- 18 Suitable for adults. Age 18 and over.

- R18 (Restricted 18) For adults, 18 and over. This is shown/sold in only specially licensed cinemas or licensed sex shops

The BBFC certificate i think my film should have is either a 15 or an 18, depending on the what the final outcome of the trailer is. As it is a horror, there will be scenes that create fear through violence, death ect. We might decide with the finishing piece that it is too graphical or upsetting for it to have a 15 rating.