Importance of our surveys

last lesson we analysed our survey questions and dicussed which questions we had to change, in
order to learn more information on our target audience, e.g their likes , dislikes and hobbies. So along with my group we came up with more focused and detailed questions like 'what are your aspirations?' and 'do you think using sterotypes in a film is a good idea and if so why?'. I found this lesson very useful because it helped me understand the significance of our survey, and how by making our survey successful we can gain detailed information about our target audience , which we can use to mold our main characters to make them more relatable.

Adulthood poster analyses

This film poster is for Adulthood , the composition of this film poster sees the film's main protagonist, sam, in the center surrounded by the other characters.This suggests that the narrative may concentrate purely on him rather then the other characters shown surrounding him in the poster. The central location also reinforces his importance to the story. The baseball bat next to the protagonist ,sam, suggests that the film will have some violent content which demonstrates the genre of the movie,which is a thriller. The baseball bat also demonstrates that this poster uses conventions of a thriller poster.The clothes that the main character is wearing suggests that this film will revolve around the struggles that teenagers face which is reinforced by the other characters surrounding sam.

By analysing this poster I learnt that by using a simple prop ,like the baseball bat, it can help to demonstrate the genre of the film. I also learnt that , the type of clothes that the characters are wearing in the film poster, will reflect which social class is being represented in the film. This will be useful in the future,when I start creating my own film poster because now I know what techniques I can use to demonstrate the genre of my film along with what type social class will be represented in it.

Development of our main characters

During my last lesson we dicussed collective identity and how the word identity can cover many aspects of an individual, for example we discussed how the details within our passports can identify us as an individual.
This lesson was very effective because it made me think about how I want to present the main characters, for example during the lesson I learnt that clothes can be used to identify a specific type of social group ( e.g the majority of teenagers are associated with hoodies) so after the lesson I started thinking about what type clothes the main characters will wear and what type of identity they may have when wearing these clothes. I also started to think about our main characters gender, ethnicity and occupation. After discussing with my group we decided to make both the main characters white british males because stereotypically men are seen as strong and physical and we are filming in london ( which is why they are british) , violence is present in our plot so it made the most sense to make them male. We decided to make them both students who are 17 because around this age sterotypically teenagers are confused about life which is the message that we are trying to convey in our teaser trailer. Finally we also decided to make them dress smartly because that will present them as normal students which is the look that we\want to project.

Reaction to our film pitch

Last week we presented our film pitch in front of our class , our logline was very successful in capturing their attention and they understood the plot of our teaser trailer when we explained it in more detail, which implies that we succeeded in making our plot simple and therefore easy to understand. This is one of the benefits that we received after doing our film pitch , we also benefited from the questions that were being asked by our classmates, because I noticed that they were very interested in the main characters and how they're going to be presented differently when compared to similar characters in similar films like Adulthood and Bulletboy. This therefore reminded me that in order for our plot and main characters to be presented effectively, our group has to put a lot of thought into how we can make our main characters original and charismatic.

Our Film Pitch

Title:  Against the wall.
Genre: Thriller.
Time period: Contemporary.
Location: UK, London.
Budget: Low to medium.
Target market/Demographic: Young males and females aged 18-25.

LOGLINE:
London, two friends are fascinated by the street life and the adrenline that they get from it however they underestimate how much risk they are placing on their lives,  until one night when they accidently kill the leader of their gang's little brother.

TREATMENT:
In South London two naive male friends from a high class background get bored with their perfect lives , so in search of a trill away from their overprotective parents , they end up hanging around with the wrong people and end up joining a gang. The two friends are fascinated by the street life and the adrenline that they get from it however they underestimate how much risk they are placing on their lives,  until one night when they accidently kill the leader of their gang's little brother. The two friends decide to leave the gang behind but are not allowed to leave by the leader who is determined to find his brother's murderer. The two friends leave anyway and never come back which raises the suspicions of the leader resulting in the two friends getting hunted down leading to a cat and mouse chase between the leader and his gang and the two friends, now the question is will they find a solution to their problem ? or will they run out of places to hide ?.

New idea

Within my group we decided to change the idea for our teaser trailer because we agreed that our original ideas were too ambitious and unrealistic , which is why our new idea is simple and not too complex. Filming will take place in different parts of London and our plot is the following ; In South London two naive male friends from a high class background get bored with their perfect lives , so in search of a trill away from their overprotective parents , they end up hanging around with the wrong people and end up joining a gang. However they underestimate how much risk they are placing on their lives, until one night when they ,by accident, kill the leader of their gang's little brother.  The two friends decide to leave the gang behind but are not allowed to leave by the leader who is determined to find his brother's murderer. The two friends leave anyway and never come back which raises the suspicions of the leader resulting in the two friends getting hunted down leading to a cat and mouse chase between the leader and his gang and the two friends, now the question is will they find a solution to their problem ? or will they run out of places to hide ?. 

Feedback on my initial ideas

last lesson I received some feedback on my initial ideas , one of my class mates said that i should shoot most of the shots using the hand-held camera technique. I really like this idea because it helps to capture the audiences attention, I decided to watch how this technique has been used in past films like 'Cloverfield' and 'Rec'. My teacher also gave me some feedback and said that I should wake up early to go and shoot the scenes during the holidays which is also a good idea which i will consider taking on board.

Feedback on Questionnaire Questions

During my last lesson i received some feedback from my class mates , on how effective my questions were and what i could do to make those same questions better. For example one of my class mates said that a specific set of questions were placed in the wrong order, and that by correcting the order of these questions, it wouldn't confuse the person filling out the questionnaire which is always a plus so i instantly changed the order of that set of questions. Another class mate suggested that i should make the questions less vague and more specific in order to get more detailed answers, i also took the advice on board and gave the questions a bit of depth. There are many other things that i have embraced from the feedback which made me change my questionnaire in order to make it better.  

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo teaser trailer

 

This is the teaser trailer for the film Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara directed by David Flincher. This teaser trailer is fast paced throughout ,due to the fast transitions between shots , allowing the trailer to gain momentum until the last shot in which we see the camera zooming into a white house which emphasises the importance of that scene with the house. The soundtrack plays in the background throughout the trailer giving the following shots an atmospheric feel , which helps to gain the attention of the audience. There are also many shots of Daniel Craig which also helps to get the audiences attention because he is a well known actor of high status. This teaser trailer in my opinion has done a great job in teasing the audience therefore making it a successful teaser trailer.

Draft Questionnaire Questions

Trailers 

How old are you?

Are you Male or Female?

How many trailers do you view in the following? (You may tick the box more the once according to your answer) 

                                        Per week                          Per month                           Per year

Cinema
Online
On Television

What trailer have you seen recently?

Has it made you want to go see that film?

What about the trailer made you watch the film?

What do you look for in a trailer?

Magazines:

Have you ever purchased a film magazine?

What about that magazine made you purchase it?What do you look for in a film magazine?

Posters

Has a film poster ever got you interested in watching a film?

If you answered yes , what about that Film poster caught your attention?

Skyfall teaser trailer

This teaser trailer for the new James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig directed by Sam Mendes, opens with an establishing shot of London slowly zooming in, with the V.O of a character saying a list of words, this continues for 30 seconds and then stops with a mid shot of Daniel Craig. 41 seconds into the trailer the soundtrack (powerful drums) starts playing in the background while fast transitions in between shots take place, this results in making the teaser trailer now more atmospheric and more fast paced which helps the trailer to gain momentum. The following shots show some of the special effects along with one close up shot of Daniel Craig which emphasises his importance and impact on the film. Then before the trailer ends there's a low angle shot of a character ,who's face is concealed which gives his character the element of mystery, the title of the film is then revealed with a different type of beat giving the end of the teaser trailer added mystery. 

What teaser trailers may contain

yesterday I conducted some research on the conventions of teaser trailers (along with watching a lot of teaser trailers), after my research I noticed that teaser trailers may tend to contain the main actor(s) in order to create a buzz to get people interested in the film. I've also noticed that teaser trailers tend to contain the minimum amount of footage from the film , so it just teases audiences, and the pace usually is fast or starts slow and picks up. From what I have researched this technique of making the trailer slow and then making it gain some momentum, is used because it helps to gain the interest of audiences. All of the above is shown in the teaser trailer below for the movie Hunger Games starring Katniss Everdeen. The link is below.

Early Initial Ideas

I was sitting on the bus (on my way home from sixth form) when I noticed a man in his late 30's, with long grey hair, wearing dark coloured clothes , reading a book on photography. In my opinion at the time this gave him an element of mystery and presence, which made me realise that when used properly, props can make any type of character seem mysterious which helps to capture the audiences attention and therefore this gave me the idea of the type of character that I want to surround my trailer around. An example of props being used to give characters the element of mystery is shown in the video below, the following is a scene from the film Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox.