First clips of the friends

On the 9th of October we did the first shots of the friends. Like before they were not serious shots but ones just to see if they worked well together or not.
However we had many problems this day:
The camera was not charged so we only managed to get one shot by using the camera (the first clip seen below). The rest of the shots we had to use Charmaine's camera on her phone, however the quality was not as good.
One of the friends (the accepting one) no longer wished to be in our trailer so instead I am now going to take that part as I will be reliable to be there each time we film and I will be able to help Shannon on what to do as we film also.
The weather was very windy so filming became difficult.
A dog kept getting into our shots so next time we will try and do it at a time or a place when dog walkers will not be interfering.
However although there were lots of complications with the filming we managed the film the clips below which gave us an insight on what we should do the next time we filmed.

Research on the weather

Before we filmed we made sure that the weather was going to be okay to film in as we did not want to set up for it then to start raining. As it shows in the picture it was said to be good throughout the day and only at night would it rain. We thought this would be perfect as it then would not be too light. However when we went to film the weather was wrong and in fact it was a very sunny day which caused problems with the clips but overall it helped with the filming as it was easy to see where to set everything up whereas it may have been harder in the dark.

Equipment

When filming out trailer we need suitable equipment for it to work well and give the illusion it is a proper film trailer. To do this we need good sound/picture and for it to be steady so it looks professional. For this to happen we are going to use the equipment below.

Timeline

Target audience

To make a product the target audience needs to be established at the very start, this is so the products can be made to fit. For our target audience we are going for mid to old teenagers (aged 15-19). This is mainly because we, ourselves are in this age boundary (17/18) so we would know what we would like the see in the cinema making it easier for us to design aspects of the poster and magazine and also what to put in the trailer.

Characters

For our trailer we are going to concentrate on three characters:
The victim

This is the person that will go missing at the start of the trailer.
She will have to look very innocent and be dressed in light/pale coloured clothes.
Our victim will be walking drunkenly home from a party so will have to be dressed up in party clothes and high heels. She will have to walk with a bit of a sway and possibly trip on the ground. As she walks she begins to fear something is following her and gets scared.
We are going to call her Lily as we researched names and discovered what Lily means.
 

She will be around 17 years old and has a tight friendship with two other girls. She will be walking home from a party to her house across a field, this is where she will go missing.

This is the person we will use to play her

Friend 1 (obsessed)

There will be two other characters which will be her friends that want to find her. This one is going to get obsessed with finding her and will not stop until she finds out what has happened to her friend. This will cause tension between her and the other friend as she almost gets too caught up in what has happened to her. She begins to blame everyone around her and her trust with everyone has gone.
We are going to call her Shannon as its quite an unusual name and is easily recognised when said in the trailer. 


Friend 2 (accepted)
This is going to be the other character that will be used in the trailer. She will be the other friend of the victim but after a while she will become accepted that they will never find out what has happened to their friend. She will not be seen as much as the 'Shannon' as she will fade out of the trailer near the end as she does not wish to carry on searching for 'Lily' as much. However she will be an important character to the movie as 'Shannon' will start to become suspicious and blame them for the disappearance of 'Lily'.
I will be playing her in the trailer and her name will be 'Chelsea' as it does not sound like an innocent nice name.

First set of shots

On Thursday the 15th September we did our first set of shots. The three of us went after school to the selected area and did our first set of shots. We decided that we would just use this time to try and understand the equipment we were given and how our actor, Georgie, would look in different positions.
We came across many problems, one was the lightning. As ours is a thriller film we wanted it to be dark as she was going across field at night, but because we filmed too early in the day it was too bright. However by using Adobe Premiere Elements I was able to edit it to make it look darker. The first clip is too light and although the lighting was reduced you could still see the blue sky. I then tried to put it into black a white to see if that would work better. Although it gives the illusion of darkness better it still does not work completely. The last shot of the shoes works the best as it still gives the colours but in a darker/blue shade, causing it to look dark. It does not look 100% realistic but it is a lot better then what it first looked like. 

Next time we film we are going to try to do it a bit later so the lighting will fit with what we want and we will not need to edit as much.

Some of the shots we did thought worked well and we were happy about how they ended up after some editing. The clips above of a close up of her shoes walking on the ground and her walking along the path worked well for the first shots. I like these shots because they tell us about the character and where she has been, also because we filmed that a bit later then the other slips, the lightning is slightly darker causing editing to be easier.

However, by filming at a lighter time we could easily see what would work and what would not for example the clip below is not going to work because the light reflecting off of her makes her look ghostly and does not work. I believe it would work better at night to shoot this shot as the light would not reflect off of her as much causing a ghost like appearance to happen.

Where it will be set

For our trailer we wanted a place that had houses in the background, as this is where our victim would be coming from, but also was out of the way in the woods or a field somewhere. So for this we went onto Google Maps and looked the the location around each one of our houses to see if there was anything that we could use. We found out that around my house was the perfect spot with huge fields and woods either side with houses just in front.

We would be using the biggest field on the picture above as it also has a pathway between it and the smaller green field to the right of it.

Here is a zoomed in version of the field and a possible house that our victim would be walking away from.

As we were filming our first shots we also took pictures of our surroundings and created a JIF to show the setting.

Trial on Adobe Premiere Elements

Today was the first time I have used this program and at first I found it very difficult to understand and find everything I needed. But after about an hour of looking at things and trialing everything I think I have understood the program more.
Our teacher gave us different camera shots and told us to put them together to create a tense short film. I cut down the clips and I either made them fade into each other, did basic cuts and the very last clip I made appear very sudden. By doing this I feel as though I created a dramatic short film that builds tension to the very end.
After an hour on the program I managed to produce the video above. However it caused lots of problems getting the video onto the blog. In the end I had to make a YouTube account and upload it onto there so I could then post it onto my blog.

Types of shots

In the summer holidays Jeni and I decided to do some shots of ourselves in different positions and used the camera to shoot ourselves in different shots. Although they will not be used for our actual trailer we found it very useful and reminded ourselves of all the different shots we could actually do. Also by doing this short bit of filming we can look back on these and see what type of shot would work best for the section we want to do next.

Planning

For the first part of my planning we did the synopsis of our trailer. We wrote it on A3 paper so we could all put across our ideas before finally agreeing on something. We found it quite easy to write this as we had a clear idea on what we would like to do. We had already decided on a genre (thriller) so to make up the trailer we just had to research more into thriller films to decided what kind of film we would make.

After that we made a basic story board on what we would like to happen in our trailer. However we feel that we will make many changes to this as it is only our first thought. Although it is only a basic plan I believe it will help us with our final idea and product as the key themes are in it, such as a girl going missing and the friends are the ones to save her.

The last bit of planning we did was to discuss the mise-en-scene of our trailer. Like the story board it was only a basic plan and is likely to change as we developed our idea. However the setting is something everyone agreed on and what would work well for out trailer, This is because dark, creepy alleyways is something that is used a lot in thriller films and it will be easy for us to film in one as there are loads around.

Thriller films

I have looked into other thriller films as I want to see how they lay out their trailers. Below you can see three different thriller trailers in which I have Print Screened vital parts in which the tension is being built and moments in which you can see, without the need for any sound or other parts of the film, something dramatic is about to happen.
Inception
By just having this shown on the screen it shows it must have great importance to the film as it is the sole item on the screen with all the audiences focus on it. It builds tension as no-one knows what it is or what it does and it stays on the screen for 3 seconds with nothing else being shown.

I found this clip very interesting as it is an over the shoulder shot of a man looking out of his window and seeing all the chaos in the street below. All the people are running towards them building tension as we believe they are coming towards him.

This very simple reaction shot builds tension as we see the expression very clearly on his face. When a trailer has these in the audience is able to see characters feelings without them actually having to say or do anything else.

This last shot I picked out from the trailer is one where we see both characters but in different ways. The girl at front shows a emotion of fear/confusion where are the man in the background is more dominant even though he is further away from the screen.



The Shining

This is one of the first shots that are shown in the trailer and straight from it, it builds tension as the one man sitting in the huge space is suspicious as it just seems wrong.

The clip of a hospital with no one there also causes this suspicion as hospitals are seen as busy places. It builds up tension as well as the audience wonder why there is a hospital being shown and link it with the man in the house.

This shot is very sudden as before all other shots are of just empty rooms. And it is quite near the start of the trailer as well causing us, the audience, to wonder what he is going to do.

This mid/close up shot of the boy screaming and looking scared builds the tension up dramatically as we do not know what he is screaming up but guess it is to do with the man with the axe.

This shot is very famous because it shows the reaction of the character so well as you can see the menace is his eyes and because he has broken through a wooden door it makes is more dramatic.



 
 The Sixth Sense

The opening shots are that of traffic with ambulances and police men all around. Straight from the start we then see that something terrible must have happened.

This basic shot of a red balloon floating up can be concept to mean a lot more, the red indicates danger/death/blood and because it is a balloon which is normally associated with children and fun causes tension as the audience wants to understand more.

This close up shot of a child's face crying and looking scared causes the audience to feel for the child and wants to know why he is crying.

This scene is cleverly done because although puppets are seen as a child's toy many people are scared of them. So to put a child in a room with lots of them causes fear for people.




By looking at these three trailers I have become more aware of what is needed in a thriller trailer but also what is not needed.

Task

This year for my media project I have decided to make a film trailer. I am going to be working with Charmaine and Jeni as we are to work in groups to produce it. I have been looking up how film trailers have changed over the years and what they involve and how they make them. I created a small presentation to show to my class that shows what I have discovered, I based my research on thriller/horror movies as I already think making a trailer in that genre would be very interesting and fun to do.

 
And here are the links to the YouTube trailers form the presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nfmh178L98

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1YbOMDI59k