Titles

For our titles we would like them to be separate to the images/ video footage, we don't want them to overlap instead we want to them to flash on the screen in-between a few shots (look at story board for more information on when the titles will appear in the trailer) Our idea is to have the writing in a text that looks bold, easy to read and with a slight glow, if possible we would like on of the letters in each title to flicker as if its broken or look like a light fly catcher when a catching a fly. Like this clip from bugs life:

We have researched different titles for inspiration, a really good website that helped us with this research was http://www.watchthetitles.com this had over 100 different title sequences from all different genres, so we could easily watch numerous titles and compare the different styles that different genres tend to use.

One of the films we really liked the titles of was 'Se7en', this was because the text flickered and gave quite an eerie look to them, even though our film is not horror like 'Se7en' we feel this style of title would give the dramatic effect we want.
http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00169-Se7en
Personally what I like most about this video is the way they have matched a flicking sound to the flickering titles, even though we are having a voice over I think having small sound effects such as a flicker when the titles appear would be very effective. The best example for this is on Brad Pitt's name at 16 seconds.

This picture consists of 4 different screen shots taken over 2 seconds, it slows down the process of the flickering and show us that we would have to over lap the title many times in slightly different places to give the flickering effect, also to add to this we could make the lettering brighter and bolder at times.

Another title we found interesting was from a film called Intimate Ennemies, which have very intricate titles that I feel would be rather challenging but look very effective. What it is, is a list of many names, every now and then different names will pop out of this list, become bigger and bolder to get the audience attention towards that text. We could use this sort of titling to show that Verity is one in a million and just taking a glance at this list they all look the same, no one name sticks out then her name appears and becomes more elaborate to show she isn't like everyone else, she is different and sticks out from the crowd.

This picture shows 4 different screen shots of the text coming through the list of names. In picture one the names are completely hidden and slowly appear until picture 4 where all the other text is virtually impossible to read. Whilst this is happening the list of names in the background are also moving and changing shape to, for example at 1minute 51 seconds the text has moulded around to make an outline of people walking. These titles look very effective but I feel would be to technical for us to make.
The whole title sequence can be seen here   http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/0058-Intimate_Ennemies

Paranormal activity titles tend to flicker and flash on the screen, again this is a horror genre when ours is a psychological thriller, but all of this we can use as inspiration. The titles come right at the end and are exactly like what we want our titles to look like, they have the blue/white glow about them and flicker, the number 2 is the first thing to appear then the rest of the title flashes in to join it. With a plain black background, it makes the text stand out and look very clear and almost as if its lit up. 'Paranormal' and 'activity' both flash, flicker and reverse lettering very quickly. This, if possible, would be really good on our titles as we want them to look broken and mysterious to match our main character and themes of the film. Also as the text appears there is a crackling noise just like the Se7en titles which we liked.

These screen shots show some of what happens, but the text moves so quickly it is hard to capture everything that happens. Also you can see the 2 stays exactly the same through out, this was taken over 3 seconds of footage.

Poster Ideas

Even though our main focus right now is filming and editing our Trailer we are still thinking about the other aspects too; our film poster and magazine cover. When we were filming in London there was a poster that we were drawn to, it had a picture of a man holding a magazine up to one half of his face, on the magazine was another man's face. We thought we could use this sort of idea but have 'Verity' on both sides of the poster with maybe different expressions or a slight change in the way she looks to show the different sides of her. Suggesting that she hasn't just got one personality and isn't the girl you think she is. One side could show her in a state of being awake and the other her having a hallucination.

Here is a picture of the poster, the film is called The Ides of March, on the poster is Ryan Gosling (left) and George Clooney (right)

London Filming Day

Today we did our first full day of filming.  We all met at West Wickham Station and got the train to London Charing Cross.  On the train we quickly set up the camera to film the view from the train window.  We did this using the tripod and we really liked the blur of colour created by the fast moving train.  We then got Emily (our actress) to sit against the train window and act as though she was slowly falling asleep.  We did this shot from a few angles to see which we preferred, ranging from a close up to a further away distance.

   When we got to Charing Cross we got the tube to Oxford Circus and set up the camera ready for the scene of Emily standing on the street with the public walking past her which we will then use to create a time lapse.  We ended up standing at the top of Regents Street so the background looks really impressive and busy with the iconic tube sign in the background.  We filmed this shot about four or five times from different angles.  Each take we did lasted for about 3 minutes.
   Following our film schedule we then got the tube to Monument and walked to The Monument Tower.  None of us had thought that it would be busy but as it is half term there was a massive queue of people waiting outside. We really didn't want anyone but Emily in our shots and began to worry about what we could do or where we could film instead.  I called my Dad and he said there was a beautiful big staircase in Somerset House.  So we got back on the tube and headed to Somerset House. 

   The staircase was perfect.  It was probably about 6 flights high of a winding staircase and was exactly what we wanted.  We went all the way to the top.  Lottie then took the shots of Emily running manically down all the stairs shown from over the balcony so Lottie had to keep her hands very still a we couldn't get the angle we wanted with the tripod.  Unfortunately for Emily we did this shot about 4 times.  We then did it from other angles.  The building was so beautiful that we wanted to take advantage of it and film from as many angles  as possible.  We also took shots of Emily running out of some double doors onto the courtyard which looked really good.  Although we didn't get to film in the Monument Tower like we originally hoped to do I think it worked out better at Somerset House anyway.
   That was the end of what we had hoped to get done that day and it was only about 1.30 so we decided to do some of the shots we had planned to do later on in the week. So we got the train back to Lottie's and filmed the close up shots of Emily in the dark laughing and looking scared.  This was filmed in Lottie's downstairs toilet by Daisy as there wasn't enough room of all of us in there. They had the lights off and used the light on he camera to highlight Emily's face and make the shot look a bit creepy and strange.  Daisy did lots of takes of these to give us lots of options.

   Finally we headed to the school field where we filmed Emily waking up only to realize she was in a field, giving audience the illusion that she is dreaming.  For this we took a duvet and pillow up with us.  This filming took a little longer then we expected but everything still ran smoothly.  We shot this scene from lots of different angles and played around with the position of the camera in relation to Emily as we are considering using jump cuts on this part.
   Overall today has been really successful.  We got all the filming we wanted to get done and more.  We have been sensible when filming and shot from a variety of angles to give ourselves plenty of choice when editing.  Although we couldn't use the monument and that was down to our slightly naive thinking, I think the Somerset House stairs worked perfectly and it all worked out for the best.  We are hoping to film the pool shots later on this week or next week and we can only hope this goes as well as today has.

Filming our production logo

Today is the first day of filming. Our target for today is to have a progression through filming our production logo. The location we will be filiming this at is Kelsey Park, we are filming relatively early in the morning so that it is not very busy and we get a good amount of shots plus the early morning lighting looks good. As part of our logo we will be using one of us and Lottie's dog Ted as part of the production logo. We want to have one of us sitting on a bench in the park within the polaroid picture and then Ted will be standing outside of this polaroid, the person will then get pulled by Ted and will walk out of the polaroid and off of the screen.

After spending a good couple of hours in Kelsey Park we came back with some really successful shots that we were really pleased with. The first shot we tried was with just Ted in the polaroid, we got him to sit down and wait, Lottie then called him and he ran out of the shot, we got quite a few shots of this and then we decided to experiment with different ideas. Another shot we tried was having Lottie sitting on a bench with Ted on his lead, as Lottie was in the polaroid picture Ted was standing just outside the frame, this wasn't actually intentional but it looked really good-Ted then ran off and took Lottie with him, we experimented with this same shot a number of times and with different members of the group holding the polaroid picture. The last shot we tried was of just Lottie in the polaroid frame, she waits for a small amount of time on the bench and then picks up her bag and walks out of the frame.

The only small factor that may affect our production logo is the fact that when we were in the park it was quite windy and so when we were holding the polaroid picture the wind was making it sway slightly but when we watched it back it actually looks ok and looks as though we intentionally meant it to be that way.
Overall we had a really successful first day of filming, we came away with some really good shots and were really pleased with the outcome. Now all we need to do is begin editing when we come back to school, which should be relatively easy as we have the main shots we want for the production logo. Well done Ted and Lottie!







Here is a tester video we did:

Filming Schedule

These are the schedules we have come up with for our filming days.  Making this will help us to stay on task and work out what we need to film first.  It is particularly important for us as on one of the days of filming we are doing a bit of it in a pool.  We will have to do this last as otherwise our actress will be wet in the rest of the shots.  We had not thought of this until we started doing the schedule so it has really got us thinking about the order we should shoot things in.  The section on the sheet called props and kit has also been useful particularly when planning our production company logo as we need a Polaroid picture with the actual photo part cut out so that we can film through it.  We completely forgot about this until we looked at the sheet and began to think about all the things we would need that day.

  We have decided to film our Production Company Logo first so we don't just rush it at the end.  At the moment we are wanting it to be a girl bench with her dog shot through a Polaroid picture frame, making it look like a normal Polaroid picture, however the girl will then get up and exit the shot.  However  we would like to experiment with other ideas of what the photo can be of when we get there so we have set aside a whole morning to shoot this.

  Or first day of filming our teaser trailer is on Monday the 24th October.  This will be our London day.  We have tried to plan this day around what we think will the least busy as each time.  The day will begin with us getting the train up to London so the obvious thing to start with is our filming of Emily on the train and the shooting of the view from with train window.  We have decided our first stop in London will be Oxford Street as it will not be too busy as 11am as it would be at lunchtime say. We will then be going onto The Monument. We have all been past The Monument at various points during the day and have never seen it busy so we are hoping that we will be lucky and it wont be busy at about 12 when we get there.  We are intending to begin this day at 10am so we get all the filming done before the sun goes down as we are getting into winter now and it is getting dark at around 4.30 now.

Our next day of filming will begin with us filming the shots on the school field.  We again are hoping to start filming early so we don't have to worry about it getting dark early.  We have given ourselves 50 minutes to film this as we want to try these shots from lots of different angles.  The next two shots will be the close ups of Emily laughing and looking scared.  We will be filming this in Lottie's house in her cupboard as we want it to be pitch black and we will use the little light on the camera to highlight Emily's face.  We want these two shots to look quite intense and different from the other ones.  After this we will be going to Holly's friends house where we will be doing the pool shots.  We have set aside quite a long time to do this as we are unsure how long this will take us.  The shot underwater will be done on an underwater disposable camera as we want that jagged look of taking lots of photos in cannon and then playing them quickly on after the other to give the illusion of movement in photos.  We want to do this to give a sort of disjointed effect and make the viewers feel slightly uncomfortable. 

Hopefully everything will go to plan and we can stick to the schedule. 

Animated Storyboard

Here, is an animated version of our story board. The shot lengths are portrayed throughout the storyboard. It is useful to see the length of time we have to work with for each shot in terms of sound. When i applied the sound to the clips i realised that there is room for improvement. The sound sounds rather bland for the length of time it lasts. i experimented towards the end with sound editing, however it is not realistic to have this edited sound all the way through. The actual script of what is being said is what we wanted, however the delivery of the words could reflect the film more. E.G. adding tone, or adding a sense of hysteria to the tone. The actual teaser trailer is now easier to visualise with the aid of the animated storyboard. The film reaches the maximum length of a teaser trailer, so we need to be careful when filming that we do not exceed this and stick to the time limits we have suggested. The animated storyboard allows us to understand any problems that may occur, such as the voice over not being long enough to cater for the required clips, as well as showing room for a soundtrack
E.G. during the titles, where it appears a sudden drop in audio. As a group we decided we didn't want the voiceover during the titles as it distracts from the text, however looking at the storyboard i can see that the titles require some audio to make them impacting.
The storyboard is not entirely completed, as we have not made any music that could be used on our trailer, we therefore cannot apply this to the storyboard.

Storyboard

Here is our completed storyboard.  We are going to be turning this into an animation with in the next few days so you can get an understanding of the timings for each shot.  We have been quite adventurous shots and locations but we think everything is achievable.  We have also shown where our titles will be going.  We have got quite a few of them as all the teasers we have watched use a lot of titles.  As you can see the title of our film is still unknown but we are hoping it will come to us in time.

Production Logo

Our production company name is 'Polaroid Pictures'. Like Dream work we wanted to adapt our original logo. We were researching ideas on the Internet and we discovered this image. We were very inspired by the layout and wanted to create our own one. The image came from, 

www. teusje.files.wordpress.com

On the same website we found another image involving polaroid pictures. 

We were very inspired and influenced by the creative use of Polaroid pictures. We feel that the second image would be to hard to recreate and we do not have the correct technology to accomplish such an intricate design.

Here is our previous logo. We want to follow a similar creative style and the images above will help us do so. 

Production Logos

Trailer Reading

Finola Kerrigan



Finola Kerrigan is an academic who has published a book called 'Film marketing'. In this book she describes the purpose of the trailer. Kerrigan makes an analysis which locates the film trailer within the context of film production and consumption, splitting it into three historical periods; the first being the Classical Era, 1930-1940. The Transitional Era, 1950-1970, and the Contemporary Era, mid 1970 onwards. Kerrigan believes that through studying trailers in this sense we learn about the evolution of film as a dramatic form. Throughout the classical period the trailer was used as a predominant method of promoting films to the consumer. Where as in the transitional era cinema audiences began to move away from film and favour television. Finally, the contemporary era sees the trailer loose some of its dominance as films begin to be promoted through a variety of different methods.
Traditionally, while the film poster may be displayed in prominent places to be seen by target audiences, the film trailer would also be seen by audiences watching other films at the cinema. In addition to this the 'coming soon' that features at the beginning of videos or DvDs.
Over the years the portrayal of films has developed into online campaigns, viewers can now easily access a website that solely dedicated to the film, which at minimal measures will show the film trailer. In addition to this film trailers can often be accessed on other peer to peer websites, such as YouTube. Branching from this viewers can add and share links across a number of social websites such as Facebook and Myspace, creating a hype across the nation, in relation to this film production companies have realised that this is the case and so there fore have created their own social network pages that promote the film, allowing audience interaction.

Teasers can be used effectively along side initial promotional activities which serve to start speculation about the film and create word by mouth, creating a hysteria across nations.
information came from 'Film Marketing, by Finola Kerrigan'

Casting

Emily Porritt
Age: 20
Role: Verity, 25 yr old female
Height: 5ft 3.5
Company: National Youth Theatre
Experience: Mysteries, West side Story, Alice in Wonderland, Slick.





We have chosen Emily to play the role of Verity

because we feel that she is a versatile actress and suits the role because she is petit she looks vulnerable and fragile, suiting the role of innocent and confused Verity.

Emily's costume will be very simple and minimal, it will be regular day wear. With some outfit changes throughout. Emily's costume will be the same in hallucinations as what she is wearing in real life. Her make up will look very natural and will have no extravagance. Her hair will be down and will be naturally wavy.

Verity

Verity is the name of our lead character, not only is she lead but she is the only cast member to be in the teaser trailer. We have chosen this name due to its meaning, truth, the basic or fundamental one, something that exists, a reality.
We cast Emily Porritt to play the role of Verity due to her abilities as an actress and her flexibility. Emily is wiling to do anything asked of her without complaint. We are pleased with our choice and believe the teaser trailer will now reach the level we want it to.

Where we are at now . . .

Over the past few weeks, we have been working on our teaser trailer project. So far we have researched what a teaser trailer is, found influential trailers, researched the target audience along with setting out a plan and story of our teaser trailer. We have created a script, and successfully made an animated storyboard, which gives us a clear understanding of how our teaser trailer will look. We pitched our idea to the class and recieved a good response,  We have also cast an actress to play the role of Verity. We have tested her voice also for the voice over which will last a good majority through our teaser trailer.

Experimenting with time lapse

Here we have experimented with our plans to do a time lapse.  Lottie and Daisy went out and filmed Daisy standing very still for about 2 minutes.  We then as a group speeded up the clip so it was around 15 seconds and added some slow music.  We think it has worked quite well and shows what we are trying to achieve for our real project.  In our film we want to use this to show Verity looking confused and the speeding up of the clip will show that she is not in her right mind.   We chose to use the song 'Into dust' by Mazzy Star as it is slow and solitary which shows a juxtaposition to the fast pace action in the shot.