PLANNING: CREATING OUR FILM POSTER

This is a collection of different movie posters where I can use some ideas from them and incorporate them into my final movie poster. These are other ideas of ways that I can compose my movie poster and also different techniques and tools I can use when creating my final movie poster.

In the Moonlight poster (top left) I plan to experiment with using different colours on the final edit of my movie poster. In the 71 posters I am going to use the technique of putting an image within another image, or inside the title of the movie. In the Total Recall Poster I might expoeriment with different editing styles on the main image of the poster. In this poster you can see an effect going out of the back of the main character as if he is breaking apart. Finally, the last convention I might use within my movie poster is editing images of the characters in different sizes just like they have done with the Getaway poster but with a car as the main images as well.

RESEARCH: FILM ESCAPE - CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

We decided to interview our characters, to get to know them. We got our inspiration from what we learnt from a blog called Film Escape. This screenshot is from the website called Film Escape, and is on this post Charlie Sierra writes about a man called Pen Densham who is an Oscar nominated film maker who has made 16 Feature Films. Pen Densham uses the technique of questioning his characters in order to get to know them better. This way he can learn how the characters work which allows Pen Densham to understand each character when filming a feature film. Questioning the characters means that Pen Densham can understand their personalities as well as the way they work. 

Our interview included the main characters being questioned about how they feel about the situation they have been put into and what happened along the way. This questionnaire and interview was to find out and further develop our character's personalities so that they are easy to understand when we release our film trailer.

Here you can see the interview where military personnel interviews two of the boys after the attack has occurred...

CONSTRUCTION: SCRIPT YOUR INTERTITLES

I went over the the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) website, and visited their subsection where I can view Trailers from recent and old movies. Here is where I am using this collection of trailers to analyse their use of Intertitles.

Lord of the Rings

The Trailer for The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies uses intertitles to grab the audience's attention by breaking down a sentence with little snippets that each have its own intertitle: 'This Year, from the Director of 'The Lord of the Rings trilogy'/ prepare for the defining moment of the Middle-Earth Legend'. 

However, this is broken up into 5 different parts which are spread throughout the trailer. This means that as the person is viewing the trailer they want to carry on the sentence, and to do so they need to go through the whole trailer. It functions almost like a voice over that is guiding us through. This constant need to know what is being said in the intertitles also means that the viewer watches the whole trailer. 

The imperative 'Prepare for' is quite a bold and demanding statement telling all people viewing the trailer to be ready. Epithets like defining and legend suggest the prestige of the project, all of which is enhanced by the glowing gold lettering.

Delivery Man

In this movie trailer the start is where all of the intertitles are seen. They are presented in an almost slide show format with lots of images of people surrounding the intertitles. It is also presented with a voice over that reads sentences with that say very similar things that are seen on screen. 

This voice over and style we are presented with at the start of the trailer gives context to the unknown for the scenes of the movie that we see after this intertitles section. After we know that these pictures of people have something in common, we see the next part of trailer which shows what they do have in common. Intertitles here are used give context for the movie and the voice over also guides us through this part. 

These intertitles also intrigue the audience because the words unique and common are complete opposite words. This enigma leads to the viewer being tantalised by the hunger of curiosity which leads them to find out what lies behind this enigma. Here the intertitles use of apparently contradictory words unique and common features as a bait that whets our curiosity.

PLANNING: SHOT LIST

This table is the shot list in which we planned how our trailer was going to be shot and what each shot and scene contained.

SCENE	SOUND/VOICEOVER	VISION	ACTORS	PROPS	NOTES
News Reporting	Soundtrack Diegetic sound	Newsroom backdrop with visual test rocket launch, via green screen Mid shot	2 different news reporters, one male, one female	None	Stationary camerawork, this is a mid-shot
Tree scene	Soundtrack and diegetic sound	Leaves blowing in the wind Close up of leaves	N/A	None	Close up shot, stationary
Flashback scene	Voiceover Soundtrack	Slow-mo effect Black and white filter Low angle tracking shot Followed by a low angle shot Followed by a tracking mid shot	All three brothers seen in past life	Rugby ball Football Table tennis table, bat and ball	Low angle, slow tracking shots Followed by a low angle shot Followed by a slow tracking mid-shot
Public Emergency Announcement	Voiceover Soundtrack	Public Emergency Announcement with informative text moving downwards	N/A	None	None
Plane scene	Plane audio Diegetic sound	Stationary mid-shot Plane interior backdrop via green screen	Father of three brothers	Mobile phone	Stationary mid-shot Green-screen
Packing bags	Diegetic sound Soundtrack	Slow, low-angle tracking shot Blurred filter	2 brothers seen packing bags	Two rucksacks Cans of tinned food Radio Two bottles of water	Slow, low angle tracking shot, cut out when actors walk past the camera
Running scene	Soundtrack Diegetic sound	Handheld camerawork, two-shot Slow-mo effect	3 brothers seen running	2 rucksacks	Handheld camerawork, two-shot
Hospital scene	Diegetic sound Soundtrack	Slow, mid shot tracking shot	Mother of three brothers	Mobile phone	Tracking, mid-shot
Shelter scene	Diegetic sound Soundtrack	Stationary shot, 3-shot, actors move towards the camera,	3 brothers	None	Stationary, 3-shot

PLANNING: STORYBOARD

This is what we did when we were planning the different shots and scenes that we wanted to put into our trailer, these scenes are put in chronological order in which they will be presented within our trailer.

RESEARCH: AUDIENCE PROFILE

Today I started making outline notes about what my target audience for our trailer was like: 

Age group: 15-35+, young adults

Gender: both men and women

They are likely to watch TV programmes such as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Orange is the new Black.

They are likely to see at the cinema: Deadpool, Hunger Games, Kingsman: The secret service, The Accountant, Fast and Furious 8, etc

In their leisure time, they will visit YouTube, play video games, download movies, drink Costa coffee / Starbucks; eat at Pizza Express, MacDonald's, Subway or KFC

Clothes: H & M, River Island, Fat Face, Top Shop, Supreme, Superdry, Next, ASOS, Adidas, Nike, etc

Media: iPhone or Samsung for Internet on the move; Mac Book or iPad to see movies, play games, browse and shop; FaceBook for connecting to friends. Instagram for sharing photographs. Snapchat for quick messaging and talking with friends. 

RESEARCH: AUDIENCES

Research: Audiences

All media texts are produced with an audience in mind - that is to say a group of people who will receive the text and make some sort of sense out of it. So audience is part of the media equation – a product is produced and an audience receives it. Television producers need an audience for their programmes, so they can finance those programmes and make more programmes that the audience likes. Advertisers need an audience who will see or hear their advertisements and then buy the products. A media text is planned with a particular audience in mind. A television producer has to explain to the broadcasting institution (e.g. BBC or ITV) who is the likely audience for this particular programme. Are they under 25 years old or older, mainly male or mainly female, what are they interested in? The television audience varies throughout the day and night, and television and radio broadcast for 24 hours, seven days a week. How do we know who is watching or listening at any one time? This is where audience research becomes important. A media producer has to know who is the potential audience, and as much about them as possible.

For Theodore Adorno,  advertising creates false needs. Adorno (1903-69) argued that capitalism fed people with the products of a 'culture industry' - the opposite of 'true' art - to keep them passively satisfied and politically apathetic. Adorno suggested that culture industries churn out a debased mass of unsophisticated, sentimental products which have replaced the more 'difficult' and critical art forms which might lead people to actually question social life. False needs are cultivated in people by the culture industries. These are needs which can be both created and satisfied by the capitalist system, and which replace people's 'true' needs - freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity, genuine creative happiness. Products of the culture industry may be emotional or apparently moving, but Adorno sees this as cathartic - we might seek some comfort in a sad film or song, have a bit of a cry, and then feel restored again. 

Adorno and the Culture History

Maslow's hierachy of Needs

  The image above shows the different socio-economic classes that you can find within different audiences. For example the new movie: Victoria and Abdul would more likely be aimed at the A section in the social grade. The audience for this movie are more likely to be company directors and executives instead of plumbers and labourers.   

We learn about higher order needs using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Where does popular culture sit in this debate? Popular culture sits at the love and belonging needs level where people use popular culture to relate to in a way that makes them happy and makes them feel as if they have a belonging and that they are part of something. Popular culture may also sit on the esteem needs level of Maslow's hierachy of needs. This is because popular culture can help with self esteem as well as finding out who you are as a person.

The reception theory focuses on the scope in textual analysis for 'negotiation' and 'opposition' on the part of the audience. This means that a text ( a book, film, advert, poster or other creative work) is not passively accepted by the audience but that the reader / viewer interprets the meanings of the texts based on their individual cultural background and life experiences. Stuart Hall’s encoding decoding model; dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings; why Hall says he studies culture instead of media specifically, and media hegemony. Audiences are no longer considered passive recipients.

Katz and Lazarsfeld assumes a slightly more active audience. It suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways. First, individuals who are opinion leaders, receive messages from the media and pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content. The information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, but is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This theory appeared to reduce the power of the media, and some researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpret texts. This led to the idea of active audiences.

Katz and Lazarfeld two-step flow theory

RECEPTION THEORY

Exit Polls

The exit polls are documents that come out of first viewings of films. This determines the audience that went to go and see this movie. In this data we can see how people found out about this film, for example, in the viewing for '71, 31% of the audience in this viewing saw a trailer for '71 before watching another film. You can also see which gender is among the audience as well as the age ranges, you can see the majority of the audience is male and that the majority is over 35 years of age.

The role of the BBFC

  The BBFC looks at issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, dangerous and easily imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, and violence when making decisions. The theme of the work is also an important consideration. They also consider context, the tone and likely impact of a work on the potential audience. Audiences are therefore guided in their viewing; vulnerable audiences are protected. Similar regulation applies to the viewing of video games which are regulated by PEGI  

PLANNING: TREATMENT

Title Names:
¬The Countdown
¬The Launch
¬Imminent Threat
¬Shockwave
¬National Threat
¬The Final Hour


Basis of Treatment:
The year is 2027 and Daniel, Timothy and Benjamin are students living within the centre of London. They are their school when they are told they need to go home. In recent years there has been a lot of tension between the UK and North Korea, due to the UKs Nuclear programme of Trident picking up North Korean submarines near the shore of the UK. The UK defence system has detected North Korean missiles. It has been broadcast around the UK through a PSA that there is only a certain amount of time before one hits London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff. The country has descended into chaos; there is economic ruin. The teenagers are able to get into their friends garage as the nearest public bunker is too far away, they manage to get to the garage in the house in time only a few minutes before the missiles arrive in the specific locations. The bomb hits; two weeks later one of the boys opens the door to the bunker… the trailer ends on a cliff hanger. 

Top Line: Three foster children escape nuclear war just in time, but when they emerge they don't know what they will find.

Big Question: Will they be able to survive the horrors that they will find beyond their bunker that they have been in for the past 2 weeks? Have other people survived or are we the last ones.



Additional ideas, in order:

Scene: boys at home, watching TV, PSA comes on
News Broadcast: Max Tegmark presenting his new book Life 3.0 to TV journalist
MT in answer to journalist: "we are facing Life 3.0, a form of silicon mind that is like ours in its creativity for insight, but totally alien in its thought processes.
I (interviewer): SO, the next frontier for AI is mastering the human language, using algorithm?
MT: this has already happened
Cut to fake obama clip
MT to camera: North Korea is our threat, it has already carried out cyber attacks. It will be missiles next.

Scene: Boys at home, watching TV, PSA comes on
PSA reads: This is your final public service announcement, please make your way to your personal, or public nuclear shelters, or a building with structural integrity. This is not a drill. Missiles have been detected and their trajectories have been set towards all major cities. Make your way to your personal or public nuclear shelters or a buildings with structural integrity.
Scene 2: Rection shot, realise everyone else in foster home has left due to earlier announcement, and foster home staff didn't check the room that the boys were in.
Scene 3: Boys running towards their shelter, slow motion shot of them running, realisation that it is locked and have to take refuge in the garage where they say their final words. They get knocked out by the blast but survive.
Scene 4: 2 weeks later they wake up and open the garage door for there to be a bright light, end

RESEARCH: WORLD WAR Z TRAILER ANALYSIS

The Trailer is here

Feature	Comments
Genre	Apocalypse/Horror
Narrative	A father finds himself in a situation where he needs to find a cure for a widespread zombie virus outbreak.
Unique Selling Point	Brad Pitt is a famous actor hasn’t done a movie like this before. There are a lot of different settings in this movie as they travel around the world to figure out the cure.
Target Audience	15-35
Music	The soundtrack is quite heavy but electrical, there are no noticeable instruments in the trailer as we can only hear computerised sounds. There are heavy beats at some points which represent heart beats.
Shot Types/Camera Angles	Canted angle, high angle, tilt pan, close up, low angle, establishing shot.
Pace	Slow start where the family are in the car, escalates quickly when there is a rubbish truck ploughing through cars and an explosion in the distance.
Dialogue	There is a lot of shouting in the trailer to show the distress and suspenseful situations. The starting dialogue is to show the relationship between the family, and how they spend time as a family in the car.
Voiceover	No voiceover
Special Effects	The explosions would be special effects as well as some scenes with the zombies, one of the scenes where they used CGI is when the zombies are climbing up the wall and on top of each other.
Credits and intertitles	No intertitles

RESEARCH: MOTHER! TRAILER ANALYSIS

You can Find the trailer Here

Feature	Comments
Genre	Horror/Thriller
Narrative	The protagonist (Jennifer Lawrence) living with her husband is experiencing strange visits from strangers and watches as they increase in number, as they do increase, more weird things happen around the house.
Unique Selling Point	The cast, the plot is unclear to see what happens in the trailer, this interests the audiences and makes them go and view the film in cinema.
Target Audience	15-30 years
Music	Percussive instruments, string instruments (violins) being played violently
Shot Types/Camera Angles	High angle shot, canted angle, tracking shot, low angle shot, close up, extreme close up
Pace	The start sets the scene so it is slow until the first stranger arrives, and then the pace picks up alongside the music until strange things start to happen around the house.
Dialogue	Not much dialogue, however the starting dialogue is both of the main characters saying things like: ‘I love you’. Then when it gets more intense, people start getting angry at each other and especially the protagonist who is screaming by the end of the trailer.
Voiceover	There is voiceover in the sense that the dialogue has bridged over from another clip in the trailer.
Special Effects	There aren’t many special effects, however when the trailer is getting intense, the house almost starts to look like it is burnt without being on fire, we see the house change colour in almost an instant.
Credits and intertitles	Throughout the trailer we see intertitles like: ‘seeing is believing’ where the words are split up between clips. We see credits in the form of actor’s names being flashed up on screen nearing the end of the trailer. The intertitles and credits are cut to the beat, they are also handwritten words which makes it more personal.

WHEN ARE TRAILERS SHOWN?

Trailers are made as the film is being edited. The time at which the trailer is released is important as trailers need to be released far before the movie to be able to capture as much of an audience as possible, generally trailers are released far in advance to the movie to create 'hype' around the film, but it can't be too early otherwise people might forget about the film.

SNATCHED
The trailer was released early summer which is perfect for the story which is about a summer holiday. This is perfect for the summer market as it tells a story of an adventure between a daughter and mother in Ecuador. However within this adventure the mother and daughter are taken or 'Snatched' and are kidnapped along the way through their trip and have to survive the dangerous surroundings they have been placed in.


Humour is also another part of this story as the daughter was planning on going on holiday with her boyfriend who dumped her on the day before their holiday, which is why she invited her mother instead. The daughter and mother being polar opposites adds to the comedy of it as they have to settle their differences to get out of the situations they have been put into.

WONDER WOMAN
The Wonder Woman trailer is an action packed superhero film with high production value. With massice action sequences, exotic locations and huge set-pieces. The trailer empowers women which is one of the main points of the movie as it is the first superhero movie directed by a female director with the main protagonist being a female as well.




THE BEGUILED
The Beguiled is a story about an all-female boarding school that takes in a North fighting civil war soldier who has been injured. The small rural community of women in Missisipi take him into their boarding school to nurse him back to health. However, as the women don't usually see males that often, sexual tensions rise as different members of the school fight for him.