Change of Idea

Over a short break, I have decided to change my idea to a completely new concept, in order to improve the ease of shooting, and make full use of the technology available. Seeing many different types of film and TV recently involving magic and illusion has made me realise just how much is possible in the editing suite. The actors involved in these films, such as Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in 'The Prestige' or Edward Norton in 'The illusionist', can't possibly learn all the tricks of a top quality magician for this role, and therefore a large amount of computer special effects must be used.

Even though I don't have the availability of sets and green screens to complete large scale illusions such as in these films, it is still possible to complete the tasks that i've devised within final cut.

Shock

Shock and Horror are different attributes to a Horror film, and create different effects within the picture.

Shock - Something that jars the mind or emotions as if with a violent unexpected blow.

In the film 'Un Chien Andalou' there is a scene where a woman's eye appears to be cut open. This creates a sense of unease for the audience, because the event is completely unexpected and shocking for them. When watching this, i personally felt shocked because of the fact that it appeared to happen to another human being, and is therefore something that could possibly happen to me.

A good way of creating shock is to create a sense of calm before the surprising event occurs. This lulls the audience into a false sense of security, and makes them feel safe. This is a common technique, used in nearly every horror film i researched. For example, the opening of '28 Weeks Later' includes a scene where one of 'the infected' appears suddenly, incredibly close to one of the characters. The character and the audience have very little expectation of the infected human being so close to the house, and it is used to create a shocking effect.

The clip can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHf6Th-E3kE, and the event occurs approximately 3 minutes through

Wonder How To

www.wonderhowto.com

This is a website I came across when searching for techniques and tips for shooting in darkness and what lights I should use to light the set, the website contained a number of tips on lighting from other people. All the videos about lighting are done by people instead of companies, however the credibility ratings given by users allow you to see which videos are the most useful. Away from lighting, there are hundreds of other videos from other aspects of film making from home made special effects to steady cams and dollys.

Planning the Shoot

Having only the two main characters in the trailer, it makes it slightly easier to film due to there being less people to plan a shoot around. It is possible to shoot the single character scenes without anyone else present, and it is possible to complete all the filming within only three shoots. This means that there will only have to be one occasion where everyone needs to be in the same place at the same time, making it easier to film. As this is a montage trailer sequence, continuity is less of a problem and the scenes will be from different days and will have differing weather conditions.

As I already have a suitable camera and tripod for the shoots, so I'm already ready to go out and film whenever the opportunity arises.

Dark Knight Magazine Cover

The Magazine covers i've found for this particular film only contain one of the main characters, with Empire magazine releasing two covers to promote the film's release, containing the two different main characters, and meaning that there are two different colour schemes in use. Whenever the joker is used on the front cover, the magazines choose to use the greens and red from the Joker's costume to make up the front cover, (with one of the Empire magazine front covers also employing purple as it makes up a large part of his suit). Whenever Batman is used however, the colours are more monochrome, and often different shades of blue (as mentioned before, fitting with the light and the logo from the teaser trailer) or with just different shades of black and grey. In the total film cover example, the font is black, along with the background. This suggests that this text was made glossy when the magazine was printed to allow the text to be readable. This makes the cover, from a distance, look plan black, with just an image of the main character on, promoting the film completely.Below are examples of the magazine covers I've mentioned, a single edition of Total Film magazine, and two editions of Empire Magazine, one with a choice of front cover.

The Dark Knight Posters

There is a clear link between the teaser trailer released for 'the dark knight', and the posters released to advertise the film's release. The logo that was used in the teaser trailer is featured in most of the posters used to advertise the film, creating a link between the different forms of media.

Above are examples of 3 posters used to advertise the film and a reminder of the logo used on the teaser trailer. The same black symbol backlit by by blue light is clear on each example of the poster, which allows the audience to see that all are interlinked, and the trailer and poster are both advertising the same film, as opposed to the first batman film in the current series, which used a monochrome black and brown advertising campaign.

The Dark Knight Teaser Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRCwnLrrxyQ&feature=related

The above link is to a teaser trailer released in 2007 for 'The Dark Knight' film, and is made in a very unusual style. The trailer starts of as a black screen, and flashes of light reveal the newly made and marketed batman logo. The logo then begins to disintegrate to reveal the source of the light, and a shard of the logo has a joker card on the back of it, giving the audience an idea of who else will be included in the movie. All the way through the trailer, voices of the characters are playing and giving the audience some idea of what the story will be, and under this is some dramatic music, which appears to be associated with the film.

This is the look of the trailer all the way through, with the light intensifying throughout, and the logo beginning to disintegrate.

Location Shoot

After coming up with the storyboard, I decided to add in an opening establishing shot to give an idea of the sort of place the story was taking place. The inspiration for this shot came as i was walking home one day and looked out over a valley to see a tranquil suburban setting. The setting itself is shown in the photo below.

For maximum mood and setting i think this part will be shot as evening approaches, allowing for an atmosphere to be created right at the start of the piece.

After Effects

If any special effects are needed, then Adobe After Effects will be the perfect programme to put these effects into the video and make them look realistic. A very good website for tutorials on how to use After Effects is called Video Copilot, and contains a lot of videos showing how to obtain certain effects in both footage and titles.

http://www.videocopilot.net/

Although the special effects on the video footage wont really be of much use with the type of project i'm creating, but the added effects on the titles will make the trailer look better.

Links Between The Trailer, Magazine Cover and Poster

The trailer will only really be linked in with the poster in an artistic sense, whereas I think I'll make the magazine cover something different entirely. Even thought the shoot for the poster will be on a different day to the trailer shoot, but a similar setup to one of the scenes can be used to link in with the trailer itself. I think that the best image to use would be the last scene I edit in, where both the main characters are in shot, with the male behind in shadow, and the female being dragged into the darkness. This would also allow for the white font to be placed on the darkness of the background to full effect. The magazine cover may contain similar colours or a similar colour scheme, but the shoot will be totally independent of the film idea.

Storyboard Animatic

The above animatic is made from the storyboard presented in the previous post. I added music to convey the mood of the trailer, however no dialogue has been added as I am not sure if i will want any on the final product or not.

Storyboard

Production Logo

The final design of my production logo has been made primarily to fit on a black background, look classy and smart. It includes two elements of the name, layered in monochromatic colours, with a contemporary guitar put in between the two letters, to break up the logo and make the frame more full.

What Rating Should the Film/Trailer be?

There will be a time where the film as a whole would have to be classified, and along with this, any trailers that go with it should contain the same classification so it appeals to the correct target audience. This would mean making a teaser trailer that abides by the laws set out by the BBFC, and attempting to create a trailer which fits in with their rules regarding classification. The film I am creating will be either a 12 or 15 film, so would therefore have to contain less sexual scenes and less foul language than films with an 18 certificate. Due the horror and terror I wish to create within the trailer, I believe that a 15 certificate would be the way to go, because of the freedom within the guidelines to put a larger amount of horror in the trailer. On the BBFC website it states that 'Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.' This allows for the range of story that i want within the trailer, and will be the rating that I aim for.

How Teaser Trailers differ to Theatrical trailers

The first video is a teaser trailer for 'The Social Network' and the second is a theatrical trailer for the same film.

This highlights the main differences between an initial teaser trailer and a much later theatrical trailer for the exact same product. The first notable difference between the two is the length of the clips, with the teaser trailer being half the length of the theatrical trailer. There is also the fact that there is no moving image footage in the teaser trailer. This helps remove the visual element of what might be seen in the film, and the audio track tells you that it is the story of the creation of the 'Facebook' website, however there is no footage to show how this has been portrayed.

The Teaser Trailer instead gives a number of titles (Punk/Genius/Prophet/Traitor/Billionaire) which presumably relate to the creator of 'Facebook', as he should be the main character. The theatrical trailer introduces the characters slightly, and gives away some of the storyline, to further entice viewers after they have seen the teaser trailer and with to discover more.

The Event: Teaser Trailer

The Event

This is the trailer for 'The Event', a secretive channel 4 drama series that will start in late october. This trailer is a teaser, as it keeps teaser trailer characteristics and doesn't give much of the story away. A lot of the shots used are long shots which are intentionally blurry to keep the story secret. Its also a very short trailer, being only 30 seconds long there is not much opportunity for the story to be told, and therefore keeping the audience in suspense.

Edited Magazine Cover

This is the edited version of the magazine cover, where changes have been made to take account of what was said in the audience feedback session. The first noted change on the page is at the top, where the 'Animation Edition' title has been placed in the top right, and has been placed in line with the masthead.

The Pug has also been edited, where the colour has been changed to fit in with the background, and an effect has been added to make it look like it is a 'sticker'.

The font on the left hand side of the page was changed to a lighter green, where the background green was taken away, and the actual 'Shrek' logo was used to brand the feature.

At the bottom of the page i decided to create a red banner to frame the page. The large amount of font that was originally across the bottom of the page was moved to the right side of the banner, and the iconic Disney logo was used on the other side of the banner.

Audience Feedback on Magazine Cover

After creating the 'mock up' magazine cover, I had a small focus group of peers look at i and analyse what they thought wasn't so good and could be improved for the final cover example. These are my findings:

The first thing they picked up on was the text at the bottom of the page, and they thought there was far too much there to take in and read at once. Although the idea was to fill some space at the bottom of the page and create a border, i now realise that this could be done better and the text can also be reduced.

Another thing they didn't think looked very professional was the 'Cartoon Edition' running across the masthead, as it looked slightly out of place. This can easily be moved and changed to 'Animation Edition' to make it look more professional.

Colour was another issue they picked up on, where the common thought was that there was far too much colour on the page, and that there was colour covering the main article. They also picked up on the Pug on the page, and the feedback stated that it was out of synch with the cover style, and also that it looked two dimensional on the front cover.

Magazine Cover First Draft

This is my first attempt at trying to replicate a film magazine cover, using ideas and styles that i've picked up from studying other magazines in the market. Here i decided to use a bold red masthead to easily convey the title of the magazine, and draw attention. The titles on the page were made bold and were intended to stand out, and the bold strokes around the letters were intended to give the cover a cartoon style font. There is also a bright yellow pug to show the special offer clearly.

Magazine Research

In preparation for designing my own magazine cover to accompany my film, i've looked at a number of different film magazine covers to analyse mastheads and what is used in the industry. Below are examples of 'Total Film' magazine and 'Empire' magazine, to see what styles are used for mastheads.

Both of these examples use a large bold masthead, with all capitals, and a colour that is bold and is easily identifiable. The 'Total Film' also contains a name that is very much associated with the film industry, so anyone browsing the magazines can pick out the genre. This is the sort of style that i will attempt to go for, to create a stand out magazine cover.

Also, i've chosen magazines with the same cover story, to see how they compare in promotion styles. It is very clear on both covers that 'Star Trek' is the main story, due the photo used, and also that the film title is the largest article on the front cover. The characters from the film have been placed in the centre of the page, and are the focus point of the article, especially on 'Total Film' where the face takes up nearly the whole page.