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.