Call Sheet

Below is the call sheet we created to help make our production scheduling more efficient in the way it would run. This sheet shows all the necessary parts to our filming day such as contact details, weather and location. All of this would help to make the running become more efficient as we know exactly what to do and what to expect when commencing filming. 

Location Scouting

Pre-Production to our trailer, we have planned and scouted out local areas which were suitable for our production to be shot from. This will be carried out digitally and also through physical scouting of the specific locations. Firstly digitally we have used modern tools over the internet such as Google Earth to see exactly where about that location is, and through street view we could get a better view from the actual location instead of a bird’s eye view. This method I believe was successful in planning locations as it allowed our group to plot exact locations for which shooting the scenes could be possible from this location. The next method of scouting locations is physically visiting these locations. This was managed by driving to the locations and scouting possible camera actions to be used for that scene.

We know exactly where we would want to shoot certain clips which the majority of which are interior scenes, with just a smaller percentage of exterior shots .The first shots we shot outside were of the Maghull sign on the outskirts of South Maghull. We had already scouted this location alongside with other road signs with Maghull throughout Maghull, however this location was chosen as we all agreed it was the most open in terms of size of the space around. This was seen in other locations as they were cramped spaces which would not look professional on screen. The next location we scouted was a small hill top south west in Maghull. This shot would be ideal as like the prior shot it shows large farm fields on a large landscape. This shot is on a higher vantage point which can show further afield when shooting here. The last location we scouted was to be an interior location of a house, this is where the majority of all the shots would take place as the film is based around an intruder entering a house. Being indoors there was limitations which we realised with space as unlike a film set there is much more space through the use of a third wall which behind the camera you could not see. So this would be a slight problem meaning some shots would be tight. We decided to use Georgia’s house using most areas in the house for our trailer e.g. stairs, living room and kitchen.

Filming Interior Shots

Below are some of the print screens I have taken from our video shots we took on our last shooting day. We aimed to get interior shots on this shoot and started with a scene of Ryan opening the door, we took many shots of this to get the angling of the camera right to show Ryan’s whole hand opening the door. We took several takes at this on each angle going from the right side of Ryan’s hand to the left side of Ryan’s hand to get the best picture quality out of the take. We then moved onto other scenes such as the one where we used the camera in different positions to show Ryan knocking on the door and myself answering the door. This type of shot would be an over the should shot with myself having my back to the camera to start with and then after the door opens having Ryan’s back to the camera coming from the outside perspective of Ryan knocking on the door. This shot did not take many takes to get right as we had planned it out properly before beginning to shoot. Shooting these scenes on an interior basis was a great advantage as we had greater use of lighting available to us and was not at risk of filming being interrupted by the weather such as we had problems with before this shooting day with the rain.

                                           

Contributor release form

Below are the three contributor release forms that have been signed by the group members that were at risk being me (Shaun), Ryan and John. This had to be signed to be released for anyone that was involved in the production of this task which was the three stated above.

Storyboards

Below is the complete set of storyboards we have created to help us when shooting the desired clips for our trailer. As you can see from the four separate sheets they are broken down into different boxes with shot number, shot type and camera movement. The boxes next to this initial box were dialogue and also sound. All of this planning through the use of storyboards helped the production to run more efficiently as we knew exactly what needed to be shot and also when it was needed to be shot by.

Filming Shoot Second Day

This image above shows the area in which we shot second day for our media trailer.  We shot the scene with the farmer chasing the characters over the land. We played around with both the angling of cameras. As you can see from this it is an open land and ideal for our genre of a farmer killer with such a huge space of land. We gained access to this land by gaining the land owners permission on the previous day.

Filming Shoot First Day

On our first day of shooting in the half term, we started filming at our first scene of the Maghull sign post. As it was our first day we were still getting used to the set up with the tripod and the actions involved in moving the camera. As you can see from the images below we set the camera equipment up in ideal weather as it was not raining at this stage of the day. We took many takes to get this opening shot to the standard we needed.

After we had the first clip secured, we moved to a nearby park called Ballswood. For this clip we shot John rummaging through the woods for a piece of evidence which would be the victims T-Shirt. After a few takes of this scene we were happy with the footage. After watching back the footage at a later date we realised it would have to be improved to a higher standard of Police forensics work e.g. Latex Gloves, other police officers and police tape. From the images below show the woods shot. From these images I took on my camera, it gave me ideas for my movie poster that is required for me to create, as well as a magazine front cover.

Costume List

Costume dressing throughout our production would be a major point as if done wrong would give off the wrong idea about the production e.g. if the two male teenagers characters were to be dressed in Victorian era style outfits and it was a modern production this would confuse the viewers and make no sense. Being teenagers the dressing was simple with the use of a normal outfit consisting of jeans and hoodies. The intruder would wear different clothing being darker mostly black and also with a mask to hide his identity.

Teenagers List:

 

·         Trainers

·         Jeans

·         T-Shirts

·         Zip hoodies

Intruder List:

·         Black over dressing top

·         Black pants

·         Dark boots

·         White mask with black eye rim

Production Name

When developing ideas for the trailer we wanted to produce a production name instead of using an already existing production company, which making our own production company would make the trailer look more professional in the trailer as well as the other products I will create. When producing a name our group brain stormed different words and stringing them together to see how they would sound

Overall out of the names we produced we decided on Loftlight Productions. This being because of the two main words in the name ‘Loft Light’ with a horror genre a loft is often the scene of many horror films and being the focus point of a creepy film, the second half of the name being Light is to follow on with the loft light when using a light in the loft as a loft is often a dark place to be. For our introduction in the trailer to make the production company name stand out we will create an ident that involves a loft and its door closing down on the camera followed by a striking a match and it illuminating the text ‘Loftlight Productions’ which will be drawn on to the surface in a hand writing to give it an edgy effect.

Prop List

To manage our production properly a prop list is necessary to see what equipment would be needed for the production and to ensure it was a success when filming the clips. Some pieces of equipment would be necessary to carry the shots out effectively such as a Camera, camera tripod and also lighting equipment. Other props would help to make the scene in film such as weaponry which we used a wide selection from knives to mallets . Fake blood is another prop necessary to make the production look more realistic. This can be managed through many formulas involving red dye and tomato sauce.

Prop List:

·         Baseball bat

·         Knife

·         Mallet

·         Matches

Equipment List:

·         Video Camera

·         DSLR Camera

·         Tripod

·         Apple Mac for editing

·         Torches to provide light in dark shots

Movie Poster Analysis: The Marked Ones

This analysis is around the horror movie Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones, the story is based around a student called Jesse who is possessed by a demonic entity after the death of his neighbour which he investigates into which leads him to be marked for a possession by this demon. The film was released in January 2014 on the 1^st. I have chosen to analyse this poster as it is a horror movie and also is similar to my trailer in which we will use scare factors such as closing doors and characters going missing in the film.

Firstly with the poster is the overall main image, this is of a religious statue usually of a saint. This connects with the whole religious and anti-demon statues seen throughout the film. These are to prevent the demon from accessing a house so straight away it is a clear indication that it has a religious connection. Another feature of the main image is the face being a skull head. This represents death and evil which can also link to the possessive demon throughout the film. The last feature with the statue would be the marked symbol which is on the statues forehead. Being red this sticks out and draws attention to itself as the majority of the poster is of different dark shades of grey so this helps it to separate itself from the rest of the poster. The symbol is a red triangle which may have some link to the demon and its belonging of being marked by the demon,.

 The poster is dark not showing much more than 5 colours something I will also carry through to my poster as I believe the darkness can be a positive as I would not want it to be a rainbow as this would bring the wrong impression to my ancillary products as well as the trailer. The colours are mostly of a grey pallet going from light grey to a dark ash black for the corners. The text stands out even more with the grey background colours with the red then white texts. I believe the red texts have a lot of relevance to the actual movie with red usually seen as evil or as blood. From this I will use the red somehow in my poster as it represents blood. 

Movie Magazine analysis: Fangoria

This is my analysis of a Fangoria horror magazine front cover featuring Insidious chapter 2

Trailer Analysis - The Marked Ones

The Marked ones is one in the series of the Paranormal Activity films which follows a poltergeist who possess a house. The film is based around Jesse who is a student and after the death of his neighbour becomes to change after waking up to find circular bite marks on his arm and later investigating his neighbours house finds out he is a marked one from a demon.

The establishing shot of this trailer is four fast shots ranging from a police car with its sirens on, some kind of helicopter, four gang members around a high end car, the last shot is a pair of men playing basketball from a very low angle. The opening audio to the trailer is a Heavy rap song of a Latino genre, this backs up that it is a rough area with the use of hip hop rap music to set the tone. This kind of music would not be found in a wealthy estate to describe its class and instead is used here for this area of Oxnard, Los Angeles. All these first establishing shots how’s it is sub urban area with violence shown through gang activity, this is backed up by showing a Latino Mexican gang. These establishing shots also show that there is a sense of reality as this is usually seen in American neighbourhoods such as this one.

 

The shots following this begin to establish the main character Jesse. This establishing camera work is off the main characters personal video camera giving a point of view from all angles of Jesse this type of shooting can also be seen in Project X following the main characters POV, this gives the film a more realistic edge compared to other films where they would just use the normal way of shooting a film from a stable platform of a tripod instead of in this case using a portable camera in all shots. This all shows some events going through normal day with different things happening from a house party to getting chased away by the same Latino gang shown at the beginning which shows that they are violent by chasing a teenager, having these two linking together means that they may become some kind of enemy later on in the plot. There is a side of Religion shown by Jesse walking past a shop that sells Religious statues, this also links to the films poster which defines that it is religiously linked to it with using such statues as the religious ones. The tone of the story drops when the music stops and goes silent with Police sirens from when they find the neighbour dead being taken away in the ambulance.

 

 

 

The trailer starts to develop more into the story when entering the murdered neighbours house to find stacks of video tapes along with other religious paraphernalia such as dream catchers and wooden crosses which this is then back up with one of the female characters saying "This is some black magic shit" Showing that they are worried about what all of the items in the basement are about with religion. Jesse then finds a picture of himself in the basement which establishes they were being watched by the neighbour. Creating a link between a marked one and the main character Jesse makes the storyline tie together both characters.

The cuts start to become more rapid later in the trailer. Later on after this scene there are slow fades from each scene when Jesse finds a bite mark and what leads on from this saying he had a crazy dream. Being a mobile camcorder the shots are medium close ups to get the full size of jesses top half of his body in frame. Jesse is wearing a T-shirt in the majority of scenes given he is a normal teenager and not wearing any clothing item that may state he is different from this. He does not seem to be involved with a gang as when his friend films one of them at 0:58 seconds into the trailer he warns him “don’t point the camera at them” proving it is a hostile area to be in as Jesse is fearful of what may happen if the camera is pointed at the gang.

When the gang attacks them Jesse lashes out and they fly away showing the destructive force of what has bitten him. This is shown through an effective shaky cam to give a more realistic edge to this scene with him being jumped. Title frames begin in 1:16 saying “This is not a gift” which clearly shows that he has gained some kind of power from the bite but not a gift which means it is a bad thing as a gift is a good thing. The fast fades carry on into the next three cuts when he wakes up sweating and some older character which may be his mother coming to see what is wrong with him, followed up by a close up in the mirror with Jesse inspecting his eye which is then followed with an ECU pealing black lines from his eye. Black flutters of the screen are a an effective edit to be used such as this part in the trailer given it builds up tension alongside the sound

 

 

 

Title scenes start to increase as the tension builds with another one saying “this is not an accident” which means that Jesse was chosen to be marked by the demon for a cause, it was not just a random attack and it is aimed at him. The next scene is in an open park with the girlfriend of Jesse investigating about the marked ones. A medium close up is used in this scene to show the pictures of her family members on the table. This entire story builds up to an attack at 1:45 when their car breaks down. The scene is in a darkened alley at night with not much light except a street light and a garage light to the right of the car. A darkened figure emerges in front of the car and instantly recognised to be the demon. The camera work from the passenger of the car goes shaky once again giving more tension as the viewer’s know something big is going to happen here when the camera sways from either side of the car looking at the door handle and then back to Jesse. All sound cuts part from the passenger’s speech when the demon attacks the car from Jesse’s side. After this climatic attack a title scene appears with cuts of the Triangular demon mark which can be found on the movie poster, the title scene says “this is only the beginning” this is an interesting title frame as it opens up the plot meaning that there is much. More jump cuts follow this leading to the couple going to see a religious person on Jesses bite. When signing the cross on Jesse the woman’s hand is blocked by Jesse. This gives the impression that the demon is anti-religious and rejects religion shown by the denied attempt to do the cross on Jesse.

The next sections to the trailer are all rapid jump cuts which show off different parts of action in the film. Starting with a man firing a shotgun, this being a firearm it shows that he is using to inflict pain on something and the way it is shot with the only light source being from the cameras on board light it makes it more effective with its realism. A dark church is the next clip in the line of these jump cuts showing the female character at her knees reading from a book from a high angle looking down on her. This adds to the story as she is clearly concentrating on reading the book to her left. With the one gleaming light coming in from the door behind it sets the tone of a creepy church as it is completely empty except from her and Jesse and he is sitting behind looking down at his lap in with a kind of guilt look to him.

Final section to this trailer builds up to interior shots which are all blacked out except when the cameras light are shining on it. All sound is muted here except from a woman whispering Spanish which sounds like a prayer once again linking to a religious connection. The camera sways from angle to angle showing a house with marked flooring of a religious star. Quickly moving to two young girls who are missing eyes just standing there speaking to the camera revealing other people who have been possessed by the demon.

The trailer concludes with Jesse running up cellar stairs only to have the door to it close on him going straight to black only to have the sound of the door closing to conclude the ending of the action. The film’s title is shown to be glowing like an electric sign using the same text style found in the movie poster, and then with the use of a Twitter hash tag #TheMarkedOnes using twitter as a platform to promote the film from and also to get people to start to talk on the trailer with the film’s title becoming a trending topic on twitter.




 

Movie Poster analysis: Taken 2

The title is in a bold text with a dark red fill, this text stands out from Liam Neesons black coat as a darker background so the title is more legible. Liam Neeson is holding a hand gun which straight away he is looking for someone to hunt down like the previous film Taken. With him holding a hand gun it bases the film at that it is action based with violence, this can also be seen from the bright orange sparks at the bottom of the poster looking like some kind of explosion. He is looking out of the poster as if he has spotted something like he does in the film. In the background of the poster you can distinctly see the rooftops of Istanbul clearly showing that is where the location of the film is based in.

Movie Poster analysis: Dead Snow

Dead snow is a horror film set in the Alps following 6 people on a winter holiday but quickly turns into a bad situation as it is where Nazi SS soldiers were based in WW2, the soldiers come back from the dead as zombies. I have chosen this poster as it is horror and have also seen this film so know about it. The title for this poster is a block font which inside includes the characters in the movie who need to survive.  I believe this affect in the text is effective as it helps the text stand out than the usual colour fill in a text block. It initially sets the scene of a zombie horror movie which the Nazi soldiers head with a zombie skin. One of the main characters is standing over the zombies head with a lower medium show holding a bloody chainsaw, he also has an axe in a holster showing they are prepared to fight off the zombies. In-between the main characters legs you  can see a small wooden shack were the people have slept  in. there is a lot of landscape in the background to be seen to the left is a wood were they will be chased leading to the story and to the right is a mountain where the Nazi zombies are found.

Analysis of Insidious Chapter 2

The sequel to insidious was released in 2013. It follows the same family from the previous movie and how the story has moved on by going back to where the demon first began to appear in the early 70`s. The trailer begins with the family moving to a new house, there is a slow text in the title explaining `It began two years ago` and explaining the children problem they have with a inner demon. There is an increasing amount of close ups between the parents as they discuss the problem. Like their previous Insidious trailer there is a strong contrast of dark colours which help with the jump factor involved in Insidious films. Between most scenes there is a slow fade to the next scene which will involve a scare factor which will keep the viewers of the trailer interested to watch the actual film. The cuts from scenes are increasingly faster to the end with clips that are jumpy to the audience.

The second film is much like the previous Insidious chapter with the same tone set in this one. With this second chapter of Insidious it enhances and explains more of the first chapter and its whole story. With the first film not being well known in the horror genre before it became a well known film taking in over $60 million with its second film of its series. However people now know of the name Insidious so will be expecting more and a high standard of a movie since the first chapter was such a success which can also be seen for the paranormal Activity films which firstly only started with a $15,000 budget but has a whole chain of films that have been released bringing in hundreds of millions in profits and with future releases expected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBbi4NeebAk

Trailer Analysis - The Conjuring

From watching all the trailers that have been nominated, the conjuring is the one that sticks out to me for many reasons. The first one is the story it tells at the beginning with the two main characters shown through a home video camera which gives an added affect to this trailer. Straight away three seconds into the trailer the two main characters are walking around some kind of basement to a building, there are white camera flickers which is similar to ones on an old style camcorder using film which instantly means it is of old technology. There is a strong use of darkened areas in the area they are walking around in with the only light source coming from the cameras actual flash light. I believe this is highly effective as it means the person viewing it can only see what is being lightened through the flash light meaning there is room on screen for other things to happen when the camera is not on it. I also believe it is effective because of the age of the building itself filming old objects like a wooden chair which is covered in dust showing its age. 

One area seen in many Horror trailers which is used in this trailer is the use of the title 'Based on a true story'. This is used saying 'Based on the true story of the Warrens' which hooks viewers in and attractants and fans of such cases of the Warrens. This text is highly effective also as it gives the overall film realism to its viewers which will make the story line more believable. other text is used such as 'From the director of Saw'. Having this text shows that the film is of a well established basis, it is not likely to be on a small budget and is likely to be on a wider release through different countries unlike smaller indie cult films which may only be released in one certain country or continent. Having a well established director screened in the trailer makes it more credible as other fans of this genre will recognize this and be a fan of that directors prior movies.

There is a lot of low light as they are in some kind of basement. The edit between every scene is a quick fade to the next but as the story develops near the end there are quick jump cuts which add tension to this trailer. The use of text near the end as well gives other  good affects as in one it says ‘It will consume you’ making you think there is some kind of demon to be found out about in the story some how. The conjuring trailer benefited my groups trailer as new ideas can be generated from this which will overall alter the groups trailer in certain scenes. Overall I believe this trailer is successful in hooking people into wanting to watch the actual film.

The trailer for the conjuring is below:

Horror trailer

Once watching the horror trailers in the nominations I can see that the majority of horror trailers will use the same techniques in their trailers being released.  I have identified a few of these examples; the4 first one is using dark colours throughout the trailer. This gives an evil affect to the pictures. You would not expect a horror film to use bright and colourful imagery. It is quite easy to see from all horror film trailers they use dark and edgy colours.  When watching a horror trailer it would be easy to identify that it would be a horror genre from just looking at it.  There will also be loud jumpy sharp music playing in the background building up to some kind of climax in the trailer usually to the story line. This will match in with the scenes of the trailer getting faster and jumping from clips faster.

Trailer Questionnaire

This is the link to my questionnaire about trailers:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ASa41zCNPQzoN69jSk3vKbrGhns7_BHlO1D-qgteWlc/viewform

Trailer terminology

Terminology

Plot summary: majority of trailers have three act structures to them, which is also similar to a feature length film.  It will begin with a beginning which will show the story being laid out.  A middle which is the second part which will push the story on going into more detail on the overall story and the characters involved.  Thirdly will be the ending of it and will usually consist of some kind of montage which will link the characters to the plot.

Voiceover: a voice over is consisted of a character that is usually not in the movie that speaks over the film to narrate it for the audience. If the character is in the movie there is usually some kind of personal link to it as he narrates over it.

Music: music is key to the trailer and for setting the right mood with the music’s tempo, when the trailer is action packed they will use a fast and usually loud music background to fit in with this action.  Most songs chosen to be used in a trailer will be in the same or neer the same genre as the movie e.g. if it is about rappers then the genre of music would be hip hop to link it together.

Cast, Crew & Studio information: If a director of a movie is well known it will be more publicised as he will have produced other well-known films to the public. The cast stars in this movie will have a warrant of a mention in this trailer. The cast run is simply the movie stars that will be in the movie but also shown in the trailer to give an insight into who would be in the movie.  There is a billing block in the trailer as well which shows the cast and crew in the movie, this will also feature in other advertising materials throughout the movies advertising campaign.

Techical elements:

Most movie trailers will use Dolby Digital as they are world renowned for their sound mix qualities.  With scenes using sound effects they will be enhanced by stereophonics sound. This will help keep the focus point on the sound being used in the trailer.

In a trailer the video resolution will be one of the same as the movie which will follow on from this.  The trailer can be distributed at an resolution up to 1080P depending on internet connection to the trailer.

Summary of A2 coure

For my A2 Course i have been asked to produce a trailer for a film in a group, and to also produce a movie poster and a front cover for a film magazine which will show off my movie trailer that has been produced. I will be working in groups no more than four to help produce these tasks.