Filming in a church

We hope to film a calm scene of Joe walking towards a church alter. At the moment we have our minds set on St. Mary's church in Leatherhead because of it's large size, traditional style and because the church isn't open during the day, we can hopefully request to use it during the day when no-one is there. We have asked the church receptionist to pass on a message for us with our contact details and are waiting for a reply.

In the scene we will be creating a third costume for the protagonist, this time trying to focus on connotations of purity, and are aiming to dress him in a white coat with white trousers and shoes.

Antagonist establishment scene

For the scene in which the antagonists are introduced, we are going to film by some industrial shipping crates to give the scene a sense of coldness. In the scene, there will be the main antagonist with a henchman on either side of him. The scene will begin with an upwards tilt from a close up of the antagonist's feet to his face, and then a reverse crash zoom revealing the henchmen. The antagonist will hold a flint lock pistol and the henchmen will each hold an assault rifle. Everyone in the scene will wear all black, with black trench coats. The antagonist will wear thick eyeliner, eyeshadow and mascara to give connotations of evil and coldness.

Casting

We thought it would be a good idea to cast people who will often be available to film, and for this reason we have cast myself as the antagonist of the film. Wearing dark eye makeup will give this character a villainous look.

Casting

Because his unique and striking hair will make him stand out in the trailer, and because of his soft features, we have cast Joe as our protagonist. He will have the most screen time out of all of the characters. In many of his scenes he will be made to come across as physically active and will require the most costume and props (sword, bullet belt, gun, military uniform).

Casting

Because of his know-how and because of the land owned by his parents, we are casting George as our blacksmith. In our opening scene, George will be seen hammering a piece of white hot iron on an anvil.

Analysis of an old A grade AS media project

Likes:
-Use of The Motion Picture Association Of America approval image at begining of the trailer
-Suitable font and colour of "Prime Times productions"
-Suitable colour of intertitles
-Suitable voice over
-Zoom reverse zoom shot
-Great location (old abandoned shelter?) and a nice establishing shot of it
-Grainy film stock as a man gets beaten up (good location choice and acting for this scene)
-Another establishing shot
-The cut between this establishing shot and the close up of a persons face is nice because in both scenes the camera movement is similar
-Fast cutting during the more aggressive scenes
-Good acting during the aggressive scenes
-Editing techniques from 2:10 to 2:20 are a nice touch

Character comparison - protagonist with less obvious clothing choice

This is an example of a protagonist that wears clothing that is maybe more typical of a villain in a film. This is a possible costume choice that we might include in our teaser trailer.

Intertitles

Having looked at a few teaser trailers earlier on, I think that it is important to note that even though the style of the intertitles do change from genre to genre, the fonts are often rather basic, easy to read, and are not always static on the screen. I want to use a bold font with a cold colour and uncommon but sensible font.

Audience Profile

Bases on the genre of the film (we haven't really got much else to go on), I think that we would be aiming our film at people aged 12 to 30, and probably towards men. This is because although the initial genre of War Film would probably appeal to people older than our suggested audience, the fantasy aspect of the film will probably take down the average age of viewers by 10 years or so, and will also probably take the age rating of the film down from a 15 to a 12a because any violence will be in a 'fantasy' context. This opens up our potential market.

Props

For the 'running scene' we have sourced two swords, one each for the two characters in the scene. We have also sourced a pistol that we could also use.

For the antagonist's henchmen, we are thinking of buying two gas masks for them to wear, to cover up their faces, making them seem more emotionless.

Costume

This is an old army uniform that we will use for the protagonist for some of the scenes.

Costume Change for protagonist and antagonist

We have decided that we want to use the military uniform for the protagonist rather than the antagonist. This is because the connotations of people in the military are probably more positive when shown in action films. However we will also use other costumes for the protagonist at other times in the trailer, such as a leather jacket and black trousers for the 'running scene'. The reason for this is that we wanted to emulate the style of the costume of "Cloud Strife", the protagonist from the 2005 film "Final Fantasy: Advent Children" because we believe this film to be of a very similar genre and style to ours - action/fantasy.

Locations

Running Scene

We want to shoot the ‘running’ scene in both woodland and an outdoor clearing. We have looked around potential area and think that our best choice is to shoot this scene at a heath in Oxshot because it has both woodland and clearings that would be ideal for filming.

Graveyard Scene

We want to get a shot of the antagonist(s) in a graveyard at night, to give the audience a stronger idea of the role of these characters in the trailer. We hope to film this scene in a graveyard in Leatherhead because we like its size and the church that will be in the background of the shot is very traditional and spooky-looking in appearance.

Church Scene

We want to film a scene in a traditional church. It will preferably be empty, with dim but warm lighting, because this scene will involve the protagonist.

Forge Scene

We will film our forge scene in a local iron forge, owned by friends of ours. The lighting will be dim to emphasize the sparks that will be produced by the impact of the hammer to the iron.

Actors & Actresses

We have decided that we would like are friend Joe to play the part of the protagonist. Are reasons being that he has interesting hair that will meke him stand out throughout the trailer.

For our antagonist we would like to use my brother Harris because he is a talented actor and would therefore have little trouble acting out this role that could be considered the toughest character to play.

We thought it would add depth to our trailer if we included a love interest for the protagonist, so we think we will cast Tanya, Joe's girlfriend. See is also a tanlented actress.

Costume (can be changed a bit with the character choice)

We have found an old military uniform that we think we will use either for the antagonist or for a henchman type character. This also gave us the idea of making the henchman wear gas masks to make them seem more frightening and emotionless to the audience.

As for the protagonist, I think I would like him to wear more vibrant clothing, or atleast something more otherworldly, to make him seem more interesting and more obviously the lead character and a likable protagonist.

Images of heroes from well known films:

Lacrimosa Dominae Analysis

Lacrimosa Dominae, owned by Los Angeles trailer music company Immediate Music, has featured in countless trailers for films and games. The popularity of the piece is probably due to the surly and memorable melody sung by a loud church choir, the aggressive percussion emphasizing the end of each phrase, and the gradual crescendo that brings the music to an abrupt finish. This is the style of music that I think would be expected for a teaser trailer such as ours.

Iron Man Soundtrack Analysis

This piece from the Iron Man Original Soundtrack features on of the main themes from Iron Man, from 0:00 to 2:40. The main features of the music are a church choir, a grand string ensemble, percussion, a brass section and uniquely - electric guitars, a drum kit and very synthetic guitar sounds. The music is fast paced and exciting and makes use of a steady contemporary drum beat that gives a definate and somewhat familiar pulse to the music.

Main Project - Teaser Trailer

Our main coursework task this year is to create a teaser trailer for a film of any style and genre. Rohan and I have decided that we want to try to create a teaser trailer for an action film. Along with the characteristics of teaser trailers in general, we will also have to think about having fast paced editing, scenes of an action style (involving weapons, fighting etc.), and costume that suggests the action genre, amongst other things.

Analysis of an action film teaser trailer: Iron Man

The teaser trailer for Iron Man could be considered a generic action film teaser trailer. It features fast paced editing that often revolves around a particular scene, for instance, at the begining of the trailer there is a scene where Tony Stark is being interviewed by a news reporter. In itself this scene is relatively slow moving and calm, but in the trailer it is made exciting because it is interupted by many other scenes (including the production company credits) with loud music. This adds an element of tension to the begining of the trailer before the music fully kicks in, and in the case of this particular trailer, another relatively tame scene is shown before the action begins. The begining half of the teaser trailer attempts to be humorous and light hearted, possibly so that when the military vehicles are attacked by explosions, the contrast from light hearted to serious story grips the audience. The Iron Man Teaser trailer uniquely features silence during a very action packed few seconds. I bellieve this is suposed to represent the point of view of Tony Stark and how he is experiencing some sort of concusion or shock. I feel that this catches the audience off guard and keeps them interested in the trailer. The next shot features an image taken of the mini screen on the side of a small hand held camera. Again, this unique shot keeps the audience interesed. In the next fifteen seconds we see a typical montage of Tony Stark designing and making a metal suit/body armor. During the montage the music slowly builds up dynamically and instrumentally to a climax after which we see an action sequence partnered with loud music to the tempo of the destruction. From this point to the end, the music calms and we are shown a montage of various scenes from the film. The final scene is a long scene of the final 'Iron Man' suit flying next to two fighter jets.

In one clip within the first montage, Tony Stark is seen hammering an anvil. I think I will incorperate such a scene into my own project.

Preliminary Task - Teaser Trailer: Therfield

Editing

Today we finished editing our teaser trailer (preliminary task). We ended up splitting the 'help page' scene into three pieces: H, E and LP. Between each piece is a different scene. After the scene where the cameras vision is obscured by the antagonists foot, the full help page is shown with ring a ring o' roses playing, and ending with a repeat of the close up of the antagonists face. We decided to copy and paste the heavy breathing throughout the teaser to make it last longer, and shortened ring a ring o' roses.

Recording Of Year 7 pupils Reciting A Nursery Rhyme

By a stroke of luck, the music department managed to help Rohan and I record four Year 7 music pupils singing 'Ring A Ring O' Roses' in the recording studio. We then recorded Rohan 'shouting' (I use the word lightly) the word 'down' from Ring A Ring O' Roses to add a scary edge to the already creepy sounding recording. We will use this audio at the end of our teaser trailer.

Recording Of Heavy Breathing

Today Rohan and I booked time in the school's recording studio to record me breathing heavily into a microphone. We will edit this audio file to play along with our teaser trailer.

Filming The 'Help' Page

Upon further analysis if The Ring, I noticed that the reoccurring footage of 'the video' plays a large role in the style of the teaser trailer. Therefore, Rohan and I have decided to film somebody writing the word 'HELP' onto a piece of lined paper. This footage will be used throughout our teaser to break up scenes. A final shot was taken of the paper, now covered in scruffy writing saying 'help' etc.

More Filming

Today we re-filmed the point of view scene of a person walking into a room and collapsing, using a darker, older looking room. We also added at the end of this scene our antagonist appearing out of nowhere, walking up to and kicking the person in the face. We also shot a scene in the main hall, using the stage. The camera focuses on an empty stage before the antagonist appears upon it, and we then captured a shot close up of the antagonists face.

First Bit Of Filming

Today we started filming the scenes for our preliminary task. We filmed a point of view shot of somebody walking into a room and then collapsing, although I think we will re-shoot this scene because the room was not dark enough. I think we will also use an older looking room to add the the fear factor of our trailer. We also decided that we will try to record some heavy breathing to accompany our trailer.

Preliminary Task (2)

Rohan and I have decided that in our teaser trailer, the only character that we will visually introduce will be the antagonist as to follow the horror teaser trailer conventions that we have analyzed. We will not feature music, but will feature ambient sound, we will use a scruffy font to write any text in, we will try to keep the scenes short and the editing fast and will not give away and story.

The Grudge Teaser Trailer Analysis

In many ways I do not believe that this teaser follows the normal conventions for a teaser trailer. I think that the constant mentioning of the previous two films takes away the element of fear from this trailer by making it non-immersive. The similarities are the fast paced editing, lack of music but abundance of ambient sounds and audio clips from the film, the featuring of a child as a lead role and the 'scratchy looking' on screen text.

The Ring Teaser Trailer Analysis

On analysis if the teaser for The Ring, I have found that many features from the teaser for Nightmare On Elm Street also appear here. Again, the editing is fast paced. There is no music, but there is an abundance of ambient sound clips and a little speech from the film. Unlike the teaser for Nightmare On Elm Street (2010), this teaser does not give away too much of the story, but it gives enough to get the audience interested (this small bit of information given seems to be the unique selling point of the film, but I haven't seen the film and don't know for sure). Interestingly, both horror trailers have scenes and sounds of young children - there was a nursery rhyme in Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) and a boy appears to be a main character in The Ring, and there is also some speech from a child during the teaser. This gives both teasers even more of a creepy edge. Both teasers seemed more psychologically frightening as opposed to showing excessive gore.

Analysis of Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) teaser trailer

My first thought regarding this teaser trailer is that it is quite long and possibly gives the audience too much information about the film's story, although this may have been a deliberate decision because it is a remake of an original film. Some main features of this teaser seem to be: fast paced editing; little or no music other that occasional percussion and intense string glissandos; revealing of the lead role; screams and other panic induced noises from the victims; little speech; backstory.

Preliminary Task

Today Rohan and I began thinking about our preliminary media task. It has been impressed upon me that I should think about basing the film in which I am to make a teaser trailer for within the school. Rohan and I have decided that since horrors seemed to be a popular choice of genre in our AS level class last year that we should try to use conventions of horror film teaser trailers in our task.

Super 8 Teaser Trailer

Teaser Trailers

A teaser trailer is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming film. Teaser trailers, unlike regular trailers, are usually much shorter in length (usually between 40 - 60 seconds long) and often contain little or no actual footage from the film. Teasers are usually release a long time before the actual release of the film being advertised (often a year and a half before). This is one of the reasons why we call them 'teaser trailers', because it is used to tease the audience.
The purpose of a teaser trailer is less focused on telling the audience about a movie's content, and more focused on letting them know that the movie is coming up in the not so distant future, and to create a buzz for the upcoming film. Teaser trailers are often made before the film has been finished (often they are in the production or editing stage), and will use alternative footage or original scenes that will be used solely for the teaser. This is common in many teaser trailers (notably Disney Pixar releases.)

A Link To The Past

http://jackssupermediablog.blogspot.com/