Storyboard

This is our sequential storyboard for our film trailer; Caged, when creating this prototype as a team Becka and I made an equal contribution in the drawing and editorial process, Becka’s more physically creative than I am so she drew each image and I put it together using iMovie. The storyboard allows us to see a linear overview of what’s to appear later on in our real trailer. Additionally a storyboard allows us to review what parts we may have forgotten or ones we should leave out, it ultimately guides us through our original idea of the film we’ll later produce. Constructing our storyboard didn't allow us to push our editing skills because I feel the storyboard needed to be plain and concise, the use of effects wasn't necessary and I simply wanted each scene to flow into another, however it did improve our organisation skills as we now had a set plan which we should follow.

Producing the storyboard took the shortest amount of time yet will later on benefit us massively; it wasn't time consuming because we produced simple sketches of images and simply filmed them one by one. It’s obvious when looking back on our storyboard that we could have been more creative, and how we have adapted, improved and added in scenes that didn't originally exist in the storyboard. 

Synopsis

A synopsis is a summary of a whole film, the following text will give an insight on the actual purpose and content of the film, by creating this it gives the audience a full idea of what to expect within our film if it was produced.

Jason is a 24 year old devoted father to 3 year old, Annabelle, having lost his fiancé during childbirth he devised all his love and energy into Annabelle. The engaged couple were perceived to be the perfect match and others would only see the brave face the mother had put on, little did they know she had suffered years of abuse and violence from her husband.  The only thing Jason has to remember his fiancé by was their daughter and a chain passed through generations.
On a standard night after Jason had tucked his little girl into bed, when rechecking his daughter she had disappeared, there hadn't been any clues of burglary or abduction, and she had just simply disappeared.
The on-going mystery of her disappearance continued eventually causing degradation of his mental ability, for the past 15 years he has been trying to track his daughter at the disbelief that she could be dead. Having a mental disorder has driven him to desperation; he noticed a young female who had similar features of his daughter. Tracking her every day and every move he soon discovered that the young female wore a pendant matching the one his wife had given Annabelle, on a mission to get his daughter back he plans abduction.
The abduction consisted of luring her in through a baby trap, this is where he disguised his daughter’s carrier to give the impression that a child had been abandoned on the road, and in hope that she'd stop so he could kidnap her. As he tracked her movements he knew the exact times of the day that she would pass through a certain road, the aim was to complete this on an empty route so that he wouldn't be caught in action. Once the girl noticed the carrier she immediately stopped and looked within the blanket which was mysteriously emptied, she was then grabbed and hauled through the woods and into a white transit van.

As the film advances the vulnerable teenager that Jason has abducted becomes a distorted character, her identity declines and she eventually loses all her normal characteristics becoming something someone would label as ‘feral’. The film centres on the teenager trying to escape the ‘father’ however struggles because of his over-obsession for his long, lost daughter.
The film looks upon the mental disorder that Jason develops because he is obsessed with finding his daughter that was originally taken, as he’s increasingly mental he builds the idea of abducting the girl he believes to be his daughter as she wears the same pendant Annabelle wore. He was driven to insanity and began to be mentally unstable hence the reason for abduction the female he believed to be his daughter rather than informing her of his purpose or contacting police to identify the girl.

Until the ending of film the audience is then exposed to who had really taken Annabelle from her father, as a plot twist the little girl had gone missing because her mother who was supposedly ‘dead’ had faked her death yet conjured a plan to get Annabelle back from the father. This makes the audience question why she had done this, and why it was such a secret from the man she was supposedly meant to be happily engaged to. The real reason why she had faked her death was to remove her from the rocky relationship that Jason defined as perfect; the lack of attention drove the mother to fake her death to get out of the relationship. She deemed Jason safe to keep her child for 3 years of her beginning life as he devised all of his energy, love and care into her, whilst she thought of the perfect moment to get her back, the years of abuse and violence the mother had faced drove her to take his ‘prized possession’ as an act of revenge, she knew that he would not give up until her found her therefore driving him mental and distorted.

Production schedule

A production schedule allows Becka and I to pre-plan what's going to happen and when, we arranged this schedule to act as a time scale so that we were able to successfully reach the filming deadline and prepare what items we needed. 
Now reviewing back the schedule didn't exactly go to plan, however this was a good thing because it means that we were able to get all of the filming done within one day right before the deadline. This meant that if we wanted any more scenes or filming we could easily get it done because we'd already achieved the basic filming that was needed. Another alteration in the schedule was main character Lucy who would have played the abducted older teenager, this was because she couldn't make the days we needed to film, therefore I took her place and felt this was more successful because I was available to film and re-film whenever we needed to. 

Thriller film collage

Creating a collage of thriller film covers gives us an insight of how we could present our poster and magazine covers as part of our media coursework. The images presented are the only that have caught mine and Becka’s attention the most, they have directly given us a positive outlook on how we could possibly create our other media sources, the inspiration rises from the images used as we’re still unsure how we’re going to feature our film on a poster or magazine cover. This collage features various thriller films with all different narratives, time periods, settings and characters. The real images have also heightened our knowledge of how it’s possible to present a thriller film to provide pre-conceptions for our viewers to give away the genre of the film. It’s made me more aware that the character featured in the film cover is usually the element that entices the audience in, the covers we’ve used in the collage show various poses from the characters; most of them staring directly at the viewers to lure or entice them. It becomes a significant feature of the cover and the eyes essentially act as the focal point of the image, however some covers use the ‘gaze’ as the alternative option to create the impression that something within the film is drawing them away such as; an investigation, a problem, a mystery or something that the main character featured has to conquer. The cover images in my collage where the main character isn’t looking directly at the camera include a bit of background which is featured within the film, this gives the viewer an idea of the type of film is and what to expect within it. The focus is then divided amongst the character/s and the background featured; the viewer then becomes dependent on the colouring, lighting and background to have an idea of the film they’re viewing. I believe that the text acts as a big giveaway to what the film would be, I feel everyone has certain associations with what font/text is used, and the colouring and the film it’s paired with. I believe red to be associated with horror or thriller, the horror font it’s usually in a way: creepy (like the film The Orphan’ whereas film genres that are based on romance use fonts which are quite girly and typically calligraphy. All of the fonts used in the cover text on the collage act as a giveaway, all look quite hard to suggest that the film doesn’t necessarily have a smooth, uplifting storyline, each is presented in either black, white or red which I feel is typical of a horror or thriller film. The similarity amongst the entire collage of cover images is the use of dark colours, dark backdrop and poor lighting; this reinforces the idea of the conventions of the thriller genre, lighter colouring of each feature may give the audience a false perception or pre-conceived idea that the film will be elevating and positive; which thriller films aren’t usually until the end.

Total Film

This is a typical film poster from well-established magazine Total Film, immediately you’re able to identify that the magazine is well-established because the character featuring on the front cover overlaps the magazine headline, suggesting the lack of importance the name has because everyone is so aware of the magazine and what it entails. The magazine cover features the obvious main character or main feature of the film that it’s promoting, however I don’t think there’s more to why this specific character has been used; I feel it’s because it’s worldwide famous actor Johnny Depp, if he’s featured on the front cover it’s inevitable that he’ll be recognised enticing the viewers to buy the magazine issue. Another thing that draws the audience into buying the issue is the word ‘FREE’, everyone loves free items so writing ‘FREE GIANT IRON MAN POSTER!’ should lure the audience in, it’s also presented in a large font of a different colour to reinforce and strengthen this idea.  The magazine title is the largest piece of text on the magazine cover, which could have been done to present the genre of magazine it fits into; e.g. showing the viewer’s it’s a magazine based on films, essentially it could be this way because of the well-established name it upholds therefore increasing sales. I like how ‘TOTAL’ remains in the ‘FILM’ text, this could be cleverly done so that no added space is needed to fit in the entire title’s text as ‘FILM’ is so large. If recreating a magazine cover like this I feel this has inspired me to imitate it however using independent creativity however based on this original idea. I immediately got the impression that the film the magazine is promoting is based on a sort of thriller genre because of the dark mysterious background colours used, paired with the white text. However the only element that contradicts or challenges the convention is the character featured on the front, as stated before he is very famous and recognised however he is not the main character. This is a clever marketing tactic though because the popularity of the actor would entice the target audience to buy the magazine, he is in full make up that distorts his original appearance however as his name is featured I still believe people would recognise him.

Thriller convention mood board

Producing a mood board wasn't essential however I found it beneficial as it allowed Becka and I see review every convention of a thriller film, we've independently made a mood board so that it increases the awareness of what needs to be included within a thriller.  Using the main features of the mood board would provide a clear suggestion that the following trailer would fit into a thriller genre. With tin the mind map is what conventions are present in  media sources such as: mysterious, dark clothing etc, however some features are what to be expected within the editing of a media source (trailer, poster, magazine cover) such as: close up, high/low/mid angle. The duration of a trailer varies depending on the trailer type, genre, and popularity of the film so  I wasn't able to include the conventions for time consumption , however knowledge of general trailers informs me that it's usually around 2:30 minutes.  As we'd have to fill such a large gap we'd have to ensure we carried out much more footage then we'd generally need to make sure that we have enough content  if we needed, we will be fully committed into creating accurate editing and filming skills that we've learned whilst studying AS media.  By using more conventions of a thriller I believe our trailer will be more effective and will have a beneficial result on the feedback we receive as it would have meant we'd applied our knowledge and kept consistent with the genre theme. 
I strongly feel that  the extent of conventions used merely depends on the film narrative as some would have to express more in order to retrieve  a better review as a thriller film. Never the less if a  film attempts to create a film within the thriller genre basic conventions from the spider diagram would need to be hard as they act as the essentials. 

Locations

I believe thriller films to always use a very dark, mysterious location in order to set the scene and reinforce the idea of a thriller. I genuinely associate thriller films with a eerie field with dim lighting as if the sun was setting, or a forest-y setting.
Becka and I have briefly spoke about what location we wish to use and we have decided upon the following possibilities:
a wood, a country lane (where the baby trick happens), a dingy flat or home where the father lives.
From looking back at this we did use some of the locations we said we would, we used:
A home that looked wrecked, in the actual trailer we featured the kitchen where kitchen roll had been thrown everywhere. We did this to reinforce the insanity that the father had developed, that he doesn't care about his home any more he only cares for the returning of his daughter 
We also used a wood when the girl had actually been abducted, this reinforced the idea of a thriller film as I'd generally associate a scary wood with an abduction or thriller genre 
We did use a park to show the happy scenes of the father and daughter bonding, this was successful as the child actor we'd used had genuine excitement to go to the park and therefore captured great shots of her and Matthew bonding.
Whilst editing we had put an effect on each scene, for the abduction scenes we'd used the Sci-Fi effect, this created a very dark appearance over the scene which strengthened the idea of something bad was happening. Yet for the happy scenes that were flash backs from the past we're done in and Old Time effect, this created a very old fashioned look which I liked as it truly showed that these were past events. 

Target audience

Choosing the target audience is one of the most significant features and has to be carefully considered because the content, display, presentation and storyline all depend on the age rating or certificate. Additional research into age certificates becomes compulsory in order to accurately tag a film. Already achieved knowledge meant that we had an idea that usually a thriller film is commonly labelled with a 15 or 18 age certificate, however some thrillers such as; The Lovely Bones varies as that is a 12A, so children still have to be accompanied. Saying this, it persuaded us further into opting for the 15 age certificate rating for our thriller trailer. Thriller films are usually set within the 15-18 certificate band because the content is usually shocking, violent, graphic, strong use of aggressive language and sometimes has a permanent feared effect on the individual.
From reviewing the BBFC (British Board of Film) I was able to get a better insight on age ratings and what they mean.

Here is what every age rating means, they're pretty self explanatory, however I'm most interested in the 15 certificate so I'll look at what the 15 age certificate rating requires.

 

From reviewing the 15 classification it has pushed me further into the idea of choosing the 15 certificate rating for the thriller trailer Becka and I are yet to produce. However to ensure that we fit within the age certificate we have chosen we need our product to be a little more edgy then we expected as the difference between a 12 and a 15 is the use of strong language and violence, unfortunately we cannot use the strong language within the trailer as they are shown to every audience however we can give an indication of what to expect by the scenes we show within our trailer.

Film questionnaire

In order to produce a successful film trailer we needed primary research to back up the secondary data we had retrieved from the internet, real films, advertisements and general trailers. Primary research allows the individuals around us to have their own say on their opinions on what they enjoy about films and their trailers. The viewer preference will allow us to adapt our three media products to how the majority would like the certain product and essentially make our products more effective. Our questionnaire is made up of questions that allow Becka and I to see what age group prefers what type of films and why, how often they attend movie theatres/cinemas and overall give preferences so that we're able to adapt our targeted age range and content. We'll have to ensure we use a variety of age ranges to support and fill in  our questionnaire to widen our knowledge of what different age ranges enjoy, it will allow us to review what different target audiences aren't fond of and what we should be fulfilling to capture our target audiences attention.

Creating a questionnaire is a vital procedure, so in that case using quantitative and qualitative data we was able to receive both open and closed answers and opinions.  We decided to continue asking for the gender and age of the individual, even if it may seem irrelevant, this was so that we could gather the opinions of both genders with all different age groups to adapt our media products to their combined preferences.
The questionnaire helps us justify the reasoning of our media products, for instance; if we include specific features they'd be based around the questionnaires from the people who fitted into our target market.
Becka and I wish to hand the questionnaire out to peers and people outside of our target audience so we're able to adapt our trailer to the needs of those in the target market and perhaps leaving out or avoiding what people outside of our market want. It's important to review the individual needs of different people in different age groups, I believe it will help us to make final amendments and conclusions on our storyline/genre/theme and conventions.

Here is the questionnaire

Billing-block

This isn't our final billing-block, this was as far as I could go using Photoshop, in the final billing-block I have made the smaller text within the text to fit underneath one another, like the Rock Of Ages billing block.

I have specifically designed my billing block as a direct replication of the Rock of Ages billing block because when I researched the examples this one was the one that I believed to look the most genuine and was exactly what I would have expected from a billing block.

The only thing that I need to edit and change from the billing block I have produced is the ‘title of film’ included both within the actual billing block and in the hyperlink for the film, the only reason to why we didn’t include the real title of the film was because we was unsure of what we was calling the film, however now that we’ve decided a name we’re able to adapt this into the billing block so the ‘title of film’ will be removed and replaced.

I feel this was positively impact the billing block and film poster as a whole (as it would included on it) because every film poster that I’ve viewed contains a billing block. I was able to create a billing block by downloading a specific layout from the internet, once downloaded I simply had to Photoshop the text I needed and so that it replicated the Rock of Ages piece I had to enhance it further using PowerPoint so that the smaller text within the billing block would be even smaller and on two lines, like so: 

This image is the one that I've adapted to create a more official looking billing block, I had purposely replicated the Rock of Ages billing block so that it was more official and if I'd almost directly copied the same layout as a real billing block I couldn't have gone wrong. I have now Photoshopped the title of the film into the billing block, this was essential as we couldn't keep 'title of film' within the billing block. I am satisfied with what I've produced as it's listed every important name that should be included within a billing block; for example: who it presents, who it's in association with, etc. 
I feel that Becka and I have successfully created a billing block that looks professional, even though it doesn't completely replicate the Rock of Ages  billing block because the font is different and layout is slightly different; I believe the attempt is quite good. Featuring a billing block positively impacts our trailer and reinforces the idea of a a professional film and trailer. It shows our attention to detail because we've ensured our billing block resembles an existing one that is of a professional quality, it shows we have considered all the vital factors that a media product should feature. 

Film poster research

To accompany the film trailer Becka and I produce we are also producing a magazine cover and a film poster, to begin both coursework tasks on a strong basis we had decided to cover initial secondary background research on the 3 media products.
When reviewing how we were going to initially produce a film poster Becka and I retrieved information online, looking at different media productions via the internet. We decided to widen our views by reviewing all types of film posters with various genres, this gave us a deep in-depth of what could be produced if we decided to opt for alternative film genres, however we narrowed our options and began looking singularly at posters that catered for the Thriller genre. To reflect Becka and I mind-mapped what we considered to be a successful film poster which essentially make it more memorable to the viewer. We discovered that thriller genre based film posters usually consisted of: dark colours, usually a white font, including the main character/s and begins to set the mood for the film so the viewers usually have an idea of what to expect.
To follow similar conventions to a real life movie poster centred on the same genre we had to draw ideas from these real life posters, below are the ones I looked at in great detail:

 
 
 

When researching The Lovely Bones I was introduced to two different media products, both very similar however I'm guessing that one poster is for an international audience and the other a regional poster.
I believe that this could be the poster catered for the needs of a regional audience, I feel this isn't the international poster because usually to capture the wide-spread audiences the producers would include the most famous actors names so that they captivate the attention from all worldwide viewers.
As previously stated I had said that most thriller genre film posters consist of dark colours to promote the film, I believe this is done so it gives the dark, mysterious and suspicious feeling that accompanies a thriller film in general, and would suggest this to be done so that the audience already have a pre-conceived idea of what genre the film displayed on the poster would be about. I believe this to be quite a typical film poster for the genre because it has displayed the typical conventions previously stated, most frequently the thriller genre has the typical mysterious storyline of kidnap and this is clearly displayed from the poster because an almost-silhouette of a man is displayed alongside a young female within a field. The storyline becomes quite clear from the film poster so that the audience can easily determine whether they'd enjoy the film giving them a pre-conception of what to expect. The background of the poster could represent the darkness of the film, showing the audience the time of day that the mystery or main feature of the film occurs in, I believe this darkness sets the theme for the film and already has a mysterious feel and essentially suggests the genre the film fits into.

The lighting is a significant feature of the poster, the laminated part surrounds the young female suggesting the innocence and purity of her, in comparison to the male facing her who stands in darkness suggesting a sense of mystery and someone who the audience need to watch and be aware of. The white colour contrasts with the dark background and is effective as it stands out to the audience, this is a convention we will probably follow, most film posters featured on the thriller genre use white text so by following the convention it should bring us a step closer into having the most effective film poster. The characters are balanced and placed either side of the poster, none of them are centralised so that balanced remains and no attention is distracted from either character. A billing block is displayed at the bottom of the film poster in a yellow font, which makes an obvious difference from the white from the rest of the text. However, they've cleverly bolded and re-sized DECEMBER, which gives a clear indication when the film is released, as it's larger and in white compared to the small, yellow text it automatically stands out to the audience and is essentially an advertising method to draw the target audience into seeing the film.
'The story of life and everything that came after' helps explain the storyline of the film however if the viewer has never seen the film it could seem quite irrelevant, however this is recovered due to the fact the film is a thriller and these films always entail a plot, or twist or murder-mystery.
In conclusion, I believe there are many features that help reinforce the entire 'thriller feel' of the film poster, the conventions used definitely reinforce the mystery and thrill of the film and when producing my own I'd like to follow some of the conventions used on this film poster. An idea gathered from this film poster in particular is the use of balance from the image, as our trailer could include multiple characters I wish to include several people on the cover, however to balance the image like The Lovely Bones I'd set them out equally on the page so no focus or attention is lost or distracted.

Here's the other film poster I found on the internet which I feel could be the international film poster as they've listed celebrity names on the top of the image to attract wider audiences who are aware of the actors or actresses.
This film cover doesn't suggest the storyline as much as the previous one and doesn't really give anything away however the strong sense of mystery remains due to the dark background, crop field and running silhouette. As there is only one character featured on this poster it's more effective to centralise her so that she's the main focus, this has been done and so that no attention is take from the other scenes featured on the poster the female has been faded. I like this front cover, however with the unusual title I believe some viewers to misinterpret the films genre, alternatively if the viewers have knowledge of thriller films they should know the conventions such as; dark backgrounds, mysterious vibe, white text and associate it with a thriller film.









Here's another thriller film that could be considered similar to The Lovely Bones, I believe the cover for Prisoners to be somewhat similar to the previous poster because multiple characters have been displayed on it, neither centralised however both balanced so that equal focus and attention is used. This is effective as it allows the viewers to have equal attention on both characters and makes them see the image as a whole. I like the idea of the 'maze' background as it reinforces the idea of being trapped like a prisoner as we associate mazes with having limited ways out, or struggling to escape; like a prisoner. Neither of the actors on the poster are looking towards the camera and they are not drawing attention to themselves through the 'gaze', both are frowning which could suggest this film to be a very stern, confusing film that needs to be unravelled. Again, a very dark background effect has been used layered with white text reinforcing the idea of a thriller genre film, pairing these devices with the other stated features the poster has clearly clarified what genre it fits into.

The Butterfly Effect is another thriller film, from researching I have a good idea that the conventions of a thriller film poster, the white text has been present in the majority that I've explored, and all of the ones I have analysed.
Like the first Lovely Bones film poster I analysed the billing block remains one colour except for the releasing date which is AUGUST 20054.
This isn't the English film poster for the film, however all vital factors are included, Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart are listed in a large font because they are characters which are recognised world-wide and will essentially draw the viewers into wanting to see the film. The dark background shows the viewers that the film isn't going to be clean-cut and innocent, we automatically assume that the film is going to be mysterious, twisted and edgy.