Male Character

Our male character as has been named 'Daniel, as it is a common male name which is easily identified as a male character. The use of the dramatic irony creates tension for the audience. The fact that Daniel thinks he is in control of the situation and is trying to gain Anna, his wife's life back through memories, whilst blanking out his past so that she wouldn't remember. Whilst all along Anna has not really lost her memory and is total control of the situation and wants to see what Daniel is really like. The audience are aware of this but Daniel is not.
This is a subversion of the stereotype as usually the male character would be dominant and have control and power over the situation and over the female, but Anna has this power in The Recollection.

Feedback

 

I have gained this feedback from my blog, agreeing with the what went wells. I have decided to act upon the 'Even better if' targets.

I have shown within posts previous to this, the influcences on which we have basesd our trailer.

also the addition of a post on interviews on our target audience has hihglighted the needs and wants of our target audience.

 

 

Observation of other A level trailers

In order to see how good a trailer can come together when doing it for an A level piece, we thought it best to pick out some of the unique trailers we found and watch them to see how it was assemebled in the end. This could give us an idea of some of the ways we could film ours or some helpful tips, however not one of them was perfect they all had there faults and by pointing them out maybe we can aviod them when it comes to filming and editing our trailer.

• Used another production company rather than making a one and adding more to the editing process.
• The titles are nicely put together there is something different about them to just plain and simple.
• The sourced sound is very fitting to the trailer that they have produced.
• Hard to keep up with and transitions are too fast. In some cases it could be seen as an eye saw.
• A wide variety of shots from close ups to extreme close ups, then to establishing shots.
• The colour and the hue/saturation has been alternated which has similiarities to other independent films.
• The tiltle and the date is given at the end and although that may be enough to hook the audience, they have no understanding of where to find anymore information.

• No understanding of what the trailer is really about.
• A lot of burred, out of focus shots which downgrade the story that is trying to be put across.
• It has an interesting way of editing the shots together.
• The costumes  and location for this piece have ben very well thought through.
• The movement of the camera is a bit shaky in places that it shouldn't be.
• The link with the flash from frame to frame like a camera links very well with the title 'Exposure'.
• The titles are not very creative which could lose marks on the editing process of the piece.
• The focus on one character mainly and brief knowledge about what is happening
• No credits, or titles, or monologue that tells us anything about the story or what is going on.
• The editing goes well with the soundtrack chosen, but I don't really understand how it links with the story.

• The manipulation of found image is nicely done and in the right context to the film too.
• An introduction to tell us a little bit of what the story may be about.
• Some self-made shots that have also been manipulated into the same filter and colouring of all other shots so there is a nice link between everything.
• The titles are telling a good story as well as the monologue but keeping it partial to the story and not giving too much of the story away to the audience, this way they hold attention.
• The static is a nice filter affect and adds a nice touch to the storyline.
• Nice, clean, in focus shots which reflect the story brilliantly.
• The hand held camera, giving the audience the impression that the film is self shot and its from their point of view.
• Storyline is well put across to it's audience, as the everything is put in the right context.
• The in/out focus is interesting and nice to see as the audience being different.
• The area is well lit and the shots in the dark, the use of the torch is a nice touch.
• the movement and the angles of the shots are different and unique. This also puts the story across even more that the film is self shot and from the characters point of view in what is happening.
• The editing process is nicely put together as they have used the static as a transition which is also something interesting and different.

Female Character

We spent a lesson drawing what our main characters might look like and what aspects we would like them to have. I was the one to draw and anaylse the female lead who is our dominant role in the story. Below you can see the picture of what we would like for our female character to look like and around it how our character is percieved by our audience.

 

Main Influence

Prisoners

Prisoners was our main influence when planning our teaser trailer, as it is a film noir and that is the kind of sense we want in our production. There is a teaser and a theatrical trailer for this film and both include a dark element to them. The fast pace movement in the teaser trailer, jumping from shot to shot is what we want to create suspense for the audience. We would also like to link our trailer/film to a thriller genre as a lot of our audience that we had a chat with, liked that kind of film so to appeal to them it would be a good idea. It does not step out of the conventions of film noir as there are several film noirs that mainly focus on the thriller genre. We chose this film as our main influence as we are focusing more on the way it is shot and the lighting used, opposed to the storyline of what happens in the film.

Showing you screen caps of the trailer I will talk about what we took from the trailer to help with our trailer planning and production.

 

The dark black screen with the lit white text has a good contrast and connects with the film noir. This means that we can incorporate this in our trailer as the colours will be a focus in ours trailer also and as they connect which the genre type film that we are producing it fits in well.

The first quote that pops up is, the top screen cap "From the moment a child goes missing" which draws the audience in and triggers people's attention to keep watching which something that we need is.

The timer escalating is a way of holding the audience until the trailer goes out with a bang. This way it keeps the audience watching until the very end which is exactly what we want and is exactly why we are incorporating it into our trailer.

The awards nominations shown mean that it looks well produced at the end of the day, the actors in the film are that good that they have been nominated for their skills shown in past and present films. As our film is not a blockbuster we didn't want to use something like this however we have begun to realise there is a running theme in independent films where a festival award is shown or a small independent award is given out to an actor or a winning genre. This will look good on a trailer as it will show that the film is worthy of an award and some aspects of the film must be good to have been presented with a certain award of whatever we chose to put in at the end of the editing.

 

 



Both Sophie and I have discussed that the use of lighting scenery in this trailer is really good. As they have made it so that the actors using the torches are the lighting and presents the scenery, opposed to high end lighting that is for big production companies, which is also what we could do to. We do not have access to big lighting equipment, so using torches could be a good idea but still effective. As for the smoke and mist etc. that could be done on a dark night and smoke machine which is present as a prop if need be.

Target Audience- Interviews

Name: Hope Hilditch

Age: 15-25

Favourite genre: Rom-Com

Platform of viewing films: DVD's

Hobbies: Socialising, Concerts

Lifestyle choices: Sociable

T.v. programmes you like: One Tree Hill, 90210, Rizzoli and Isles.

Video Games: not applicable

Name: Andrew Morton

Age: 25-45

Favourite genre: Thriller

Platform of viewing films: Cinema & DVD

Hobbies: Outdoor Sports and Music

Lifestyle choices: Sporty, Sociable.

T.v. programmes you like: Breaking Bad, 24

Video Games: not applicable

Name: Annie Jones

Age: (25-45)

Favourite genre: Western

Platform of viewing films: DVD

Hobbies: Reading

Lifestyle choices: Outdoors, environmentalist, guerrilla arts

T.v. programmes you like: Detective dramas. - White Chapel, Vera, Walking Dead

Video Games: not applicable

Target Audience

When deciding on what film we were going to produce, we first had to think about who our audience was and how we could appeal to them. As we have previously stated our production will be film noir, it will have a dark element to it and also include some violence; this will mean that it will not be suitable for children under the certificate under 12. After developing our idea, we then began to think that all of the other elements would lead to the certificate being even higher, at a 15.  The fact that out film was going to be available to people of the age 15 and above, we were decreasing our target market and that would mean that we were not guaranteed, a large appeal to this film in the industry. When both Sophie and I talked about this we decided that we were going to target the ages 15-35 which is average age teenagers to adults. To target two different age brackets being teens and adults it may be difficult however that will mean a larger interest and a wider span of word of mouth to be passed around.

We thought we would run some research on certificates and how they are given to films, so we looked into The British Board of Film Classification where we then had a look how films in this country were given to different films.

As we were browsing the website we came across the restrictions for all film ratings, all points were bullet pointed and while looking through, we focused on the 15 certificate which is the category that we thought our film/trailer would fit. We now have evidence to back up that our film will be suitable for anybody above the age of 15 and targeted up t the age of 35.

Lastly, when looking at our target audience and the certificate of the film, we thought best to look at the type of film we were producing which would be noir.

There are various different films that we have watched and studied, all with different certificates and so I made this collection of films, to see were ours would fit in the media world. I went on to think further about the language and the scenes that would occur in our trailer and potential movie but nothing would be as graphic as featured in "Drive". However thinking about "The Dark Knight Rises" it is a slightly softer film with rarely any language and not very many brutal occurrences. This is when I started to think again about our film fitting into the category of a 15 certificate and look into more detail about what blade runner entailed, so that I could see exactly why it had that rating.

In conclusion all the research that has been done on target audience I think that we can see we are attracting a wide audience of both male and female from the age 15 to around 35, who are interested in film noir. Referring back to this target audience throughout the process of this project will mean that we can appeal to our end target market and achieve what we set out to do.

Feedback

We were given further feedback which more or less praised us on our research that we have been doing over the past few weeks. The only improvement we were given was to refer back to our title and audiences comments throughout all stages of our production to see what there opinion is on how our movie is coming along and also if we are meeting the criteria of all of our research material. Once our trailer draft is done, we will be going back to our audience and see if they think our title matches the vibe of the film. Other than that I think both Sophie and I are progressing really well throughout the research stage of our project, with great detail and focus on what will have impact on our trailer and other products that we will be producing ahead of this.

Ideas On The Style Of The Title

I have been thinking into the layout of the title and how to make it look effective, nothing has been completely decided on the style and layout of this yet, but I think that the way the title is presented can give an idea about the film. I looked into film titles and how the style connotes the genre. Below is what I have come up with.

This is a title of a horror film. From my point of view I can tell what the genre of the film is due to the font type and the colour. The black, white and red highlight to me a sense of uncertainty, something dark and mysterious.

 

 

 

This is a romance/drama. From the title and image of the film I can tell it is a romance but the drama aspect does not shine through. The white title connotes innocence and purity between the couple, this is also shown on the image.

 

 

The Hangover is shown to be a comedy. The comedy like layout pursues this, the use of the white again in the title makes it stand out and the use of the large text with the small 'the' inside the word shows a comedy like feel to the film, in conjunction with the image used.

 

 

 

All of these film titles are written in capital letters. I decided that because of this recurrence that it would be the best idea to create our own film title in capital letters. This does draw attention to the title.

 

 

 

This is what I first came up with before carrying out research into film titles and layouts.

 

 

 

I used lower case, because I remember previously that presenting too much writing in capital letters can become an eye strain to an audience and can make a page look messy and unreadable. The use of the rotated 'backwards' "R" is to connote the flashbacks and the looking back into the wife's past to recollect lost memories due to her accident, this is why we decided on the film name as 'The Recollection".

 

 

 

From the research i decided to alter the layout and look of the film title to make it look like a professional film. I didn't change the layout very much but I feel what I did do has made a huge difference upon the look of the title. I decided to change the lower case letters to capitals, then I changed the font to a standard easily readable font of "Times New Roman".

 

 

 

 

Influence

We took influence from several different films for our trailer that we are going to produce. When we first decided what our storyline was going to be, we then went on to think about the shots that we were going to use and what we could take some ideas from.

One of the film trailers was the brand new film that came out this month called 'Prisoners' starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal as the star vehicles. I went to see this film on it's release date and immediately picked up that it was film noir because it followed all of the conventions. As we are producing a movie trailer based on noir we thought it would be good to pull some ideas from a film like this. The first thing I picked up on when watching this film is the limited lighting they use and the low saturation of the picture, there seems to be no colour which we could easiy recreate. This being said they do use the colour dark blue a lot with the black and white picture which also relates to neo-noir. Both Sophie and I think that the rain and the fog and rain used in this trailer is also a good way to create a sence of mystery. The picture shown below of the shilouette in front of the light is a great shot for what we want in our trailer of the "mystery killer" to look like.

Another film we used to influence our trailer ideas was "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2" which was released in 2012 with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson as the main stars. The parts that we took from this film were the extreme close up shot of the woman's eyes and then the sharp close ups of the area around her. This extreme close up shot in our trailer will focus on the introduction of the female character who plays an important role in the storyline. As we use this kind of shot it will show the characters apperence and also what is happening around her, so it esablishes where she is in the timeline of the story and what the aftermath is of the crash.

Moreover, we had a strong influence from "The Butterfly Effect" released in 2004 starring Ashton Kutcher. As we spoke about the colouring of the trailer in our initial thoughts we thought of trailers were this type of idea was used. Within this trailer the happy moments are in colour, the reactions shots for the character are in black and white and the bad parts of the trailer are in a darker, less saturated colouring. We both thought that this idea was good to use as the audince wacthing our trailer which will be able to establish what the happy moments are in the couples life's and what is the present day when the wife does not know about there life. This will make a big impact of the trailer and help the audience understand what is going on which is what we both want and for a person to be interested in a film they will need to know some of what will occur in the film.

The last influence that helped us with our trailer ideas and also with our start off point with the plotline was "The Vow" released in 2012 starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum as the main stars to the story. The crash that we want to occur is the trigger event in the story, although our trailer will be a charcter driven film. This scene will be our main focus to get right and planning how we are going to shoot it, so what camera angles and shot plan. The light in this scene will be important aswel, as the headlights of the approaching car will be a significant part to let the audience now that something is aboutto occur.

 

Revised Plan on Trailer

Plot Synopsis

The Recollection


A couple in their mid-20's have been happily married for 5 years, but when Anna ends up in a close fatal accident her memory is said to be wiped and her husband Daniel helplessly attempts to gain back her past, through their personal items and memories. Will he be completely honest about his own past? And will it be enough to get her back?

Storyboard - On Paper

We took our ideas and pitch to put together a storyboard on paper of how the layout and shots should be in our official trailer we are to create. This allows us to see what potential shots we could use and have an idea of the look of the trailer.

 

In these scenes it shows transitions I am thinking about using as well as the shots. These will make it easier to visualise what the trailer would look like once it is created using physical footage. Creating  planning sheets like this has enabled us to have more time to be able to take shots. As if these werent planned, the scenes wouldnt be as effective because they are not thought through in terms of linking with the plot, genre and the continuity could suffer, as scenes may not link as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After drawing up scene plans, It became clear to us that we needed to incorporate, more shots to extend the duration of the trailer. After looking into teaser trailers I have identified the relationship between all teasers concerning the duration, these usually have been proven to be between 1 and 2 minutes.  

Feedback

This is part of the feedback I have gained. I have also received verbal feedback throughout the creation of the blog so far.

 

 

I gained this feedback from my teacher who often reviews my work. As you can see from the image the feedback was the within the first week of beginning the blog and I had a small number of posts at the time, but this was going in the right direction for the time I had spent on this so far.

From the "even better if" feedback I was able to highlight my weaker aspects, those being that further detail should be added to the posts to show my research and the ability I have to include different media's. From this feedback I added more detail to all of my posts and embedded, new ict media's, such as a Prezi, images and YouTube clips.

 

 

This is my second piece of feedback I have received about my contribution to the blog

from my "ebi" I have went through the blog and corrected mistakes in grammar, punctuation and typing error. I then followed through to contextualise my images on my prezi, so they looked better presented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Film Noir Then and Now

Double Indemnity

In the class we watched the film noir Double Indemnity (1944) and looked at the conventions shown throughout. The whole film appeared to be all set in the dark, this is created by the black and white cameras used with the film being created so long ago, back in 1944. The silhouettes caused by the dimmed lighting create a sense of suspense for the audience and sets off an enigma code as questions become recurrent.



It is a detective film with a strong stereotype, of a girl meets boy storyline, the costume is casual from that era although if people wore these clothes now these would be classed as well dressed, for example the dresses, and suits. The language is courteous, well-spoken and understandable as well as in a mono-tone tone.


Drive

Another film noir we have watched Drive (2011) this is a neo noir, the contrast between the standard 1940-50's film noir and the neo noir film is mainly the colour difference. Drive was produced in colour but the same conventions remained; the dimmed lighting, mysterious plot, night time scenes, the male and the femme fatale, character who the male falls in love with who is already married.










The obscure camera angles throughout highlight the film noir aspect of the film. The modern storyline of the actor who drives in films, particularly fast modern cars, he lives in a big city and works in a car garage on the side, it is a typical job for a male in the modern day. The costume is very casual and simplistic; nothing like the costume from the original film noir films of 1940-50's.