Research and planning-updated costume and props list

While doing the planning for each shot in the trailer I found out that we would be needing a lot more props and costumes than I originally thought and so I have wrote up and updated costumes and props list for the trailer which I have included below:

Research and planning-rough ideas on cinematography and mise-en-scene for each shot in the teaser trailer

My planning for the mise-en-scene and cinematography to be included in each shot in the thriller teaser trailer

Research and planning-Mise-en-scene- inspired from American Beauty (1999) and La Haine (1995)

Whilst thinking about the mise-en scene to be used in each of the shots for the thriller trailer I came across to things from two different existing films that I want to use in my film trailer as well.

American Beauty (1999)

In this film there is lots of uses of blue items scattered everywhere in the scene and on the walls in the house and these help create a cold and harsh feeling to the film. I will also be using this technique and have decided to use lots of blue items such as a blue toothbrush, blue towel, blue mat and blue shower curtain in the bathroom scene as I think this would be an effective use of mise-en-scene to create meaning within the scene and to give the audience the idea that the environment is cold and quite unpleasant.




La Haine (1995)

In this film there is lots of scenes where messages are delivered through the use of words or sentences. An example of this is where there is a shot of one of the main characters, Hubert and above him in graffit it says" l'avenir c'est nous" which means "the future is us." I will also be using this mise-en scene technique in my trailer as I think it is a great way to get across extra detail and depth about the characters and the story without using any extra dialogue.

Research and planning-audience feedback and comments on my second mock ups for the film poster and magazine cover

I posted this message on my Facebook wall and upload this image asking for feedback on my poster and magazine cover and this is what my audience said.

I will use the feedback I received here to improve my magazine cover and poster when I create it for real using Adobe Photoshop.

Research and planning-2nd mock up for film magazine cover

This is the second mock up I created on PowerPoint and this one is more detailed than the first one and has been changed in accordance with my audience feedback. I haven't used any of my own pictures and have found all of these online and put them into this mock up in order to get a better idea of what my magazine cover will look like and the kind of photos I want to take for the magazine cover.

Research and planning- 2nd mock up of film poster

This is the second mock up I created on PowerPoint and this one is more detailed than the first one and has been changed in accordance with my audience feedback. I haven't used any of my own pictures and have found all of these online and put them into this mock up in order to get a better idea of what my poster will look like and the kind of photos I want to take for the poster.

Research and planning-audience feedback and comments on my first mock ups for the film poster and magazine cover

I posted this message on my Facebook wall:

I uploaded images of both mock ups and this is what my audience said:

I will now create another more detailed version of the mock up and rectify it according to the audience's comments.

Research and planning-first mock up of film magazine cover

This is the first mock up of my film magazine cover created using the drawing tools and shapes on Microsoft Powerpoint.

Research and planning-first mock up of film poster

This is the first mock up of my film poster created using the drawing tools and shapes on Microsoft Powerpoint.

Research and planning- collage with ideas for Film magazine cover

Research and planning- collage with ideas for Film poster

Research and planning-action plan for the tasks I plan to complete over the christmas holidays

During the Christmas holidays I plan to:

• Complete some basic draft designs of poster and magazine and upload these to Blogger and to Facebook for audience feedback
• upload more detailed designs to blogger and to facebook for audience feedback
• keep blog up to date
• do extra research posts
• continue creating detailed plans for the cinematography and mise-en-scene to be used for each shot in the thriller trailer
• set up times where me, my partner nyle and our main actor dan can meet and film for the trailer

Research and planning-extra ideas post- inspiration from Safe House (2012)

Whilst looking for some more ideas for the Mise-en-scene and Cinematography to be used in our thriller trailer I came across Safe House (2012) directed by Daniel Espinosa. In this film much of the disruption and action scenes are filmed on hand held camera which I think adds to the realism of the film and makes us the audience feel more involved in the narrative. This is a technique I want to incorporate into my film trailer aswell.

Although this film is not a thriller film (like the trailer we will be making) it still has many elements similar to what we want in our trailer because there is similar Mise-en-scene and Cinematography used throughout both the action and thriller genres of film.

Also in this trailer a blue tinge is used to film nearly all of Ryan Reynold's character shots and there are lots of close-ups on his face throughout as this is a feature that me and my partner Nyle plan to use when we create our own film trailer. Ryan reynolds is mostly shot with half of his face in the light and the other half in the dark and this implies that he has two sides to his character. A good side and a bad side. This is much like the main character in our film and so I want to use a technique similar to this when filming shots of our main character.

As well as this I think the fast cutting and the use of sound contributes a lot to this film and I like the way the sound is used throughout. There is loud fast sounds during peaks and then slow gentle music during the troughs of the film. Also most of the tension built up in this film in done through the use of the non-diegetic sound.

Research and planning-ishowU video showing me doing some media work

Research and planning-Filming the inital establishing shot

Yesterday I used a camcorder and tripod and filmed the establishing shot for the beginning of the trailer.


I decided to plan the shot out first before filming it. In the plan I wrote

• I wanted to try this shot as a steady shot and a panned shot.
• I wanted to film it at both a canted angle and a normal angle so I could then decide which looked better and was most appropriate for our trailer. The canted angle also gives the effect that everything is a little disorientated and this matches our narrative as the main character is unstable, confused and unsure of lots of things.
• I wanted to try to film this shot both with people and cars and then again without in order to see which looked best for the trailer. However I was unable to do this because the location we picked was quite quiet and there weren't many cars or people there at any point during the day and so I had to just film without these. This might in fact be better for the trailer in the end because the lonely location reflects the narrative of our trailer where the main character is lonely and has no one and this shot shows this.

This is how the different shots looked when canted and without



















Also I planned to film the same shot a couple of times at different times during the day in order to see how it looked with different amounts of lighting so I could then decide what kind of lighting I want for this shot in the trailer.

This is what the shots in different lighting and different times in the day looked like:

At 12:00pm

At 12:30 pm. Half the shot is in the sunshine and half is covered by shadow and it darker. Could be used to show the contrast and confusion of the main character as he too has both a dark side and a light good side.

early morning around -5:30 am

 morning around 7am

morning around 7:50 am

8:00 am in the morning.

Also in my initial plan for this shot I wrote that I will be adding some props (mise-en-scene) to the walls and gates in my shot in order to get across subliminal messages and clues about the narrative in the first shot.

For the Mise-en-scene I wanted

• A wanted poster with a shadow figure and a big question mark in the centre-this helps show that the main character doesn't know who he is and that there is a mystery suspect (of the murders) but the audience and characters in the film are unsure who is it.
• Newspaper clipping of murders (which gives a clue to the narrative of the main character who has supposedly committed lots of murders) on the walls and on some on the floor
• A "Wrong Way" road sign on the lamp post - which matches the characters who is doing something wrong and continues to head in the "Wrong" direction and trust the "Wrong" people.
• Sheets of paper scattered around the shot with words that link to the narrative such as "WANTED", "ALIVE?" and "PERPLEXED" (another word for confused)
• A map of some place and directions to it but with the heading "FEELING LOST?"-Reflects the fact that the main character is lost and kind of in limbo with no where to go.

However when I started adding these bits of mise-en-scene to the shot I found out that the camera was too far away from the scene and so these props are barely visible from the camera when I film. This is a photo of what it looks like with the props. As you can see all you can see is a small white square where the piece of paper is.

This means I can no longer use this idea and so I am now going to do an extra shot of Dan looking out of the bedroom website followed by close ups of this different mise-en-scene filmed somewhere else and then use an eye line match to make these shots link together and this should create the effect I initially wanted.

Research and planning- How we can improve our trailer based on our audience feedback

A few days ago we got some audience feedback from the roughcut of our trailer. Based on this feedback we are going to improve our trailer by:

• Doing some research on YouTube on what kinds of fonts existing thriller trailers use for their titles and get some ideas from these for our own teaser trailer
• Use the costumes and props list to get together and go out any buy the appropiate costumes including the black and white contrast clothing inspired Tsotsi (2005)
• Having another discussion about when we are both free and what locations will be best to get to during the christmas holidays so we can do begin the proper filming for our teaser trailer.
• Add more scenes or editing transitions in order to make the narrative of our trailer slighty clear. However we are not looking to make the narrative crystal clear because the story and kind of film it is is not very clear to begin with and has lots of ambiguity in it and we want to get across this message through our teaser trailer. Also to improve our trailer we will look into incorprating some of the editing features seen in Memento (2000)
• Film a lot more footage especially for the middle and end of the trailer as we currently have no footage for this.
• Decide on definite time during the day and night where we can meet up and film both daylight and night time scenes.
• Put more thought into the types of lighting used for each of our scenes so we are then able to deliver messages through the lighting (mise-en-scene)
• Add the BBFC certificate for our film near the beginning of the trailer.

Research and planning-update-magazine coverline ideas

After looking into some existing film magazine covers I decided to change my coverlines. This is what I now want as my coverlines

MAIN COVERLINE-Exclusive interview with main actor

Also my smaller cover line ideas are:

• Plus....
• top 10 box office films of 2012
• Win a signed Film poster and DVD for Twilight-Breaking Dawn
• Interview with the cast of End of Watch
• Get in the festive spirit with Nativity 2
• Exclusive interview with the film's director
• behind the scenes of the film-see how it was made

Research and planning-inspiration for costumes-Tsotsi (2005)

In order to get some ideas for costumes for the main character I decided to look at existing films that I had previously seen to see if I liked any of the costumes used on these. I came across Tsotsi (2005) which is a foreign languagn film that I have studied in A2 film studies.

In this film the main character is fully dressed in black at the beginning but as his character begins to improve and softens the colour of his clothing changes and gets lighter throughout the film and finishes with him wearing a white t-shirt. This is effective in showing the characters transition in the film as he is a "baddy" at the beginning and black connotes death, evil and dark and by the end we as the audience like him and feel sorry for him and white connotes good, pure and inncocent. White is also normally used for the hero.

After looking into this film I have decided to have costumes for my main character similar to this to present messages similar to this film. However my costumes will kind of  be the opposite to what is seen in Tsotsi. I will start off with the light coloured clothes at the beginning of the trailer to show the main character is the hero but by the end the main character will have darker clothing on to represent the fact that he may possibly be the bad guy after all. This will also help us show ambiguious messages about our main character and make the audience unsure as to whether he is the good guy or not.

Research and planning-audience feedback for our teaser trailer

We showed the rough cut of our trailer to our class and everyone wrote out some feedback for us that we can use to help us improve our teaser trailer.

This is what they all said:

From the audience feedback we know now that we need to

• change the font of our titles throughout to make them fit with the film genre we are doing
• put more thought into the costumes for all of our characters
• finalise locations
• make the narrative more clearer
• do some more filming for the latter side of the narrative
• show more contrast and mix up both day and night footage/filming
• use better lighting in scenes
• make target audience clearer

Research and planning-unedited footage from the rough cut of our thriller trailer

This is the unedited footage from the rough cut of our trailer

Research and planning-prezi with ideas for coverlines for the film magazine cover

Research and planning-Extra genre research - Memento (2000)

After completing the first rough cut of our trailer I wanted to get more ideas and inspiration for the content of our trailer. The film Memento (2000) directed by Christopher Nolan has a similar plot outline to what we decided to do and so our tutor recommended that we watch the film trailer for this film to see what it is like and in particular what the flashbacks in this trailer consist of.

I find this trailer particularly interesting and it suits very well with the narrative for our trailer. This first flashback shown is a jar falling to the ground and smashing and this has something to do with the main characters wife's death. I very much like this idea and may incorporate something similar to this into our trailer.

Also the non diegetic sound used in this trailer is effective and added lots of tension and suspense which is another thing that we need in our trailer.

As well as this flashbacks used in this trailer are black and white just like the flashbacks used in our trailer. Also we could possible add a grainy effect to them so they look like older memories.

Research and planning-Rough cut of film trailer

This is the first rough cut of mine and Nyle's thriller teaser trailer.

Research and planning-Auditions for possible cast members

On Tuesday 4th December we held auditions for the different roles in our teaser trailer. We auditioned Becky and Dan as these were the most suitable people from all the headshots we had taken.

This is Dan's audition

He makes a convincing killer and we able to stay composed throughout which is exactly what we need for our trailer. Also he looked quite sinister. However for the actual trailer he will need to give a performance that looks sinister and confused at the same time as his character is not quite sure he's a murderer by the end of the trailer.



This is Becky's audition

We thought that she gave a very convincing performance of a guilty wife who was trying to act innocent. Again Becky would be very good in our trailer as she gave us the exact performance for the wife that we were looking for.

Research and planning-Head shots of possible actors we could use in our trailer

Here are some headshots we took of potential actors that could be in our teaser trailer.

I don't think it would be a very good idea to use James in our trailer as he doesn't really have the right look and wouldn't make a convincing killer or someone who is going a little mad. 

Dan looks a lot more convincing for the part we may need him to play and so this would definitely be a better choice for the lead characters

Tahera could maybe be possibility for playing the woman (wife) who frames the lead character for the murderers as she looks quiteinnocent but we could twist this into devious looking or misleading.

Similarly Faith could also play the wife as she looks as though she could act quite innocent and devious at the same time and switch between the two very quickly. However we may also use Faith as a victim or dead body in the trailer.

Becky is another person who could possibly be the wife as she could act innocent on the face of it but be more devious secretly.

Chris is not very suitable for our trailer as he looks to happy and chirpy to make a convincing killer. Also we need someone who has confident body language like a killer would and he doesn't really have this.

Research and planning-Plan for this week

This week me and my partner Nyle plan to:

• Do make up tests
• Conduct auditions for roles on the film teaser trailer
• Do some head shots for actors we could possibly use and actors we won't be using and why

Research and planning-genre research- shots influence by thriller film Psycho (1960)

In order to get some inspiration for shots to be used in the thriller teaser trailer I decided to look at some iconic films from the past that have some similarities to the film trailer we will be making. I found Alfred Hitchcock thriller/horror film Psycho (1960) which also has a main character who is a little mental just like the protagonist in the thriller trailer we will make.

In Psycho (1960) there are some shots that I think would be very useful and suitable for our thriller trailer.

This shot is a medium close up of Norman Bates (the main character). He is leaning up against a wall. We could use a similar shot to this in our trailer when the main person is scared having just seen a dead body and he is leaning against a wall with his head in his hands

This shot is close up of Norman Bates taken from near the end of the film. He looks quite evil and sort of unhinged. We could use a similar shot to this near the end of our thriller trailer where the main character confesses to the murders.

Research and planning-independent research post-mood board showing some of the Cinematography for the teaser trailer

This is the mood board I created with ideas for Cinematography to be included in our teaser trailer.

Research and planning-extra research-test shots

We used the SLR camera to test out one of our mirror scenes using a mirror in college. However when we actually film for real we will be using a real bathroom mirror with a sink. In order to practice for this I took some test shots of the bathroom mirror in my house and tried to get some angles where we could film without getting the camera in shot. Below are the pictures I took.

 This shot is taken without using any zoom feature. It is not quite what I wanted as it shows both  the mirror and the person stood in front of it if there was anyone. I would much prefer it if you could just see the guy's face in the mirror and no where else.

 This is a picture of the bathroom mirror with the zoom function. I don't really like this shot because it is too zoomed in and you can't tells its a mirror in the shot

This shot is my favourite out of the three shots I took because it shows the edges of the mirror and so even though I zoomed in a little you can still tell its a mirror. Also this shot would only show the person's face in the mirror and not them standing in front of the mirror and this is exactly the kind of shot I had in mind for this part of the teaser trailer.