Research and Planning

Today in my media lessons my group and I discussed our final ideas for our teaser trailer ans have decided to change the genre of our film to a romance HORROR, as we feel that this will work better for what we would like to produce. So far our ideas for our teaser trailer are as follows;

Research and planning - Common features of a trailer

Common features of film trailers and have included the different features below...

Aprooval Screen:

The screen shot above is a features which is included in many film trailers such as the film Something Borrowed. This feature is featured usually within the first few seconds of the trailer, however some film trailers may feature it half way through the trailer. To make our film trailer look authentic and affective, this feature will be used.

 

Credits:

The screen shot above is another common feature which is featured towards the end of the film trailer, showing the producers, main actors etc. This is also featured to draw the audience in, by showing them the main actors etc which will encourage the audience to want to see the movie. Possibly because they have seen another film with the same actors in and thought it was a successful film. This is an affective feature and by including this into my own trailer, it should hopefully ensure a more realistic film teaser trailer.

Production Company:

The screenshot above, is again another common feature of a trailer, which is the production company of the film and is included occasionally at the beginning of the film trailer. My group and I are most likely going to include this feature, as it addresses which audience it will appeal to straight away and also because we want our trailer to look as realistic as possible.

'Coming Soon' 

One of the most common features of trailers is that they include some sort of release date, this may be an actual date or just 'coming soon'. Above I have print screened what this feature looks like in film trailers, this screen shot is taken from Friends With Benefits film trailer. When editing together our film, my group and I will have to keep this convention in mind, and to choose whether we include an actual date or 'coming soon' however, as we are going to produce a teaser, rather than a trailer, 'coming soon' maybe more affective than a date. This is usually because teaser trailers are released further in advance before the actual film is released, as it is just giving you a 'teaser' clip of the film and not giving out too much information i.e the date it is released. By including this into our teaser trailer, it will create a more realistic approach.

Research and planning - To do list

Research

• Soundtrack research (non copyright music)
• Costume and location research
• Actors and props photos
• Audience Research (typical audience member and similar films)
• Uploaded YouTube videos of teaser trailers and titles analysed in detail
• Institution research (Paramount etc)
• Certificate research
• Font research for magazine/poster etc
• Film Magazines researched and analysed
• Teaser posters researched and analysed

Planning

• Own film idea brainstorm
• Own film treatment
• Shot lists
• Questionnaire (and feedback)
• Photos etc of filming
• Diary of filming/editing etc with photos and screen grabs
• Mood board
• Storyboard - animatic
• Script
• Practice titles created and uploaded

Research and Planning - Filming task

• Our recent assignment that we were set in our media lesson was to test out the new camrecorders that we will be using to film our teaser trailer with. The new camera's are different by which they are a lot smaller and easier to use. In a way they have better quality and ensure we are able to prevent camera shakes as we will need to produce our teaser trailer in the best quality possible to make it look affective. Throughout filming we used a tripod and found that the new camera's are a lot easier to connect to the tripod than the old camera's were and also found that we had a lot less camera shakes. For this task we were assigned to use the phrase ''what are you doing here''? in three different settings and changed the mood for every scene. We then had to edit together the three different mood settings using different affects etc on Adobe.

• The first setting is of a long shot of myself walking into the science block using the phrase ''what are you doing here''?. We decided to add 'lightning effect' to this particular scene as we wanted to play around with the use of different effects that are available on Adobe. The second shot is a medium shot set in the common room, whereby oli uses the phrase ''what are you doing here''? facing towards ambrose. We used an effect which is different to many of the other effects which is called 'Green Screen Key' whereby the screen is divided into 4 different boxes. The third setting is used outside and is a long shot, whereby Kate is hiding behind a wall and is joined by Sarah who walks round the corner using the phrase ''what are you doing here''?, we didn't use an effect for this scene due to Kate standing up against a blue building it makes the whole setting look blue. Inbetween the three different scenes we have included 'spinaway =3' which is used to overlap the scenes from one to the other, this is effective and is used in many films.

• Overall, my group and I found that this was a useful and affective task as it showed us how these camera's can be used and how they have quite a good clear image which is affective as we do not want the image to affect the video footage. I am looking forward to using these cameras during the period of filming our teaser trailer.

Research and Planning - Composing music

Today in our media class we were assigned to try out a music composing site called Cubase. This involved playing around on the software, finding out what it is used for and all of the different audio tracks that you can record and play. After my group and I had spent some time playing around on the software, it has made us want to go the extra mile and to be able to compose our own music for our teaser trailer. As none of us are musicians, we have decided to ask a close friend who is willing to help us compose the music. We are hoping to compose audio tracks that will relate to the genre of our film, romance.

What is Cubase used for

• record and edit information (e.g record from your keyboard)
• record and edit audio information (e.g record vocals, guitars etc)
• mix and playblack audio tracks all at once (the amount is only limited by the power of your computer) and create a stereo mix to burb to a CD
• You can add countless types of audio effects to your recordings
• Enhance your arrangement with many instruments that play within Cubase, such as ''Halion One'' (this has lots of sounds, such as pianos, bass instruments, strings etc.)

 

Research and Planning - Choosing Between Producing A Teaser Or A Trailer

Now my group and I have thought about the finalized genre for our film (romance), we have been assigned to think about whether we want to produce a trailer or a teaser. We have analysed many teaser and trailer films and have come to the conclusion that we would like to produce a teaser. We would like to produce a teaser because we feel that if we produced a theatrical trailer, it will take a lot longer and there is a risk that it would go on for too long and it may bore the audience, or start to look like the beginning of a film. Therefore, we have decided to produce a teaser, as we feel it will be better due to the fast paced editing, lots of shots (close ups, medium shots, long shots, establishing shots) which we hope will be able to interest and appeal to the audience.

Research and Planning - Mind Maps

Over the last few lessons, we were assigned to research further into our research and planning for our finalized film project. This included making three mind maps on you're choice of different film genres, my group and I chose the genres horror, action and romance. After creating all three different genre mind maps, we had to come to a finalized decision on which genre we are most likely to produce. This assignment has become very useful to my group and I, because before we had been set this assignment, we started to think about doing an action film this year however, we have found that by doing this assignment it has made us realize how hard it would be to produce an action film. We found it particularly hard to come up with some good ideas as to what we would include in an action film and made us realize do we really want to make an action film? However, we could think of many ideas for horror and romance. In conclusion, my group and I found this task useful and we have come to a decision as to which genre we feel will help us get the best grade possible, and help with learning how to produce a different film genre. The new genre we have chosen to produce is Romance. We are yet to decide on a finalized plot for the film however, we have managed to put ideas into a mind map which we will relate to, to help us think of a good exciting plot.