Talent sourcing

When it came to casting for our trailer, we had a very clear vision on what we wanted our characters to be like and the look we wanted. However, preferably, we needed our cast to be people we knew so they were reliable when it came to our multiple filming sessions. Therefore, we chose Jordan (someone in our group) to portray the character of George. We asked a boy we knew called Jack to portray the character of Archie. This was because he had the right look we were looking for, he was the right age and he also had acting experience. For the character of Robbie,  we used someone from our school who studied Theatre Studies at A-Level and also had external acting experience. He also had the right look for what we visioned.

Our Name

Our group had a discussion on what we could call our film. We found this quite a hard task because we wanted it to have name that met our genre, was easy to remember and also created suspense.

Here are some of our ideas below:

-White lies
-Take it's course
-A string of secrets
-The right one
-Maybe one day


After lots of consideration, we decided to name our film, 'The Deep End'. This relates to our underwater scenes and it also is a good metaphor for the situation the characters find themselves in.

Conventions of the Romance Genre

Production Company Profile

This is the logo for our production company, 'Super 8 Productions.' In our trailer, we replaced the black with a transparent background, making it more aesthetically pleasing. We chose the name Super 8 Productions because we wanted to create a Super 8 Footage feel.

Behind The Scenes; Underwater filming

Location Scouting

                                                     The footpath used for montage scene.

The swimming pool used for the underwater scenes.

      

Mood Video

Shot List

This is our shot list. We created this after our storyboard.

Model Release Form

As all of the actors in our film are under 18, this means we have to have gained written permission from them to help make it official. Our model release form is above.

Call Sheet

This is our call sheet for our filming day. This helped us to plan our filming and made sure we filmed all the necessary scenes. 

Celtx

We used Celtx to put together our storyboard, as it allowed us to clearly organise the different frames chronologically, as well as select the type of shot, description of action in the frame and the length of the shot. 

Inspiration

Early on in the planning process, my group and I decided that we wanted to do a Romantic Drama trailer, taking inspiration from music videos and films. 

For example, the films we watched to gain understanding of the genre and aesthetic cinematography were:

Love, Rosie

 In Your Eyes

Like Crazy

How I Live Now

Single Man 

Submarine, and in particular "Two Weeks of Love Making"

In Particular, we focused on music videos from Lana Del Rey:

Summertime Sadness

Blue Jeans 

Music To Watch Boys To

Other music videos we looked at were:

Shake Me Down - Cage the Elephant

Running - Naughty Boy ft. Beyonce 

Visionary Sheet

When we first came up with our initial idea, we decided to produce a visionary sheet in order for us all to have the same vision on what our trailer would entail.

Character Research

For our film trailer, we have decided to create a romantic drama, which focuses a lot on the aesthetic elements.  We drew inspiration from super 8 footage and examples from Lana Del Rey and films such as 'Like Crazy' and 'Love Rosie'.  We wanted to create old styled footage with new technology, embracing new and early cinema, and also showing that the past, present and future don't have to be separate, but can work together.

The trailer focuses on the secret love affair of a girl and her boyfriends brother, unbeknownst to the audience until half way through the trailer.  We cast myself as the girl as I also do theatre studies, so would be able to embrace the role.  In order to develop the groups and my own understanding of the character I have made a mood board selecting different elements on which to base my character.

The mood board shows a range of characters such as Allison from The Breakfast Club, Angela Chase from My So Called Life and Anna from Like Crazy.  I chose these characters to take inspiration from not only due to their sense of style and appearance but due to their personalities, they can all come across as quite shy and with low self confidence, but once they become comfortable their confidence comes through, this would work well with my character due to the romantic nature of the trailer.  Costume would include a lot of oversized wear, with big coats and jumpers, dark in colour, this would also contrast with the white dress worn in the underwater scenes, adding to the dream like atmosphere.

History of the Romance Genre

Storyboard

We put together the storyboard using the software Celtx, as it enabled us to clearly order the shots and add text to describe the shots and also add a suggestion to the time limit

Moodboard

Individually, we each produced a moodboard for our trailer which included any locations or shot ideas that we had. We then collaborated our ideas and started doing research into our narrative to make it interesting for the audience.

Starting off the coursework...

After coming back from the summer holidays, we were told our coursework groups for this year to produce the trailer. I am in a coursework group with Emily Kelly, Anna St Pierre and Jordan Winter. We then had a discussion with our groups on what our visions and aims were for Media Studies this year. In conclusion, our group have decided to produce a romantic drama trailer with very aesthetically pleasing mise-en-scene and we plan to put everything into it.

Black Swan Theatrical

Final Black Swan Poster

Poster research

The top poster is the poster that is mainly used for advertising Black Swan. However, I found these other posters that I really liked and thought it teased the audience well. I used these for inspiration when it came to making my own poster.

Black Swan Teaser Storyboard

I asked Grace to choreograph the dance for the trailer. This means I couldn't really do a storyboard for the teaser but what I knew is that I had a vision of a girl dancing with the audio over it. Therefore, on the day of filming, after watching it a couple of times, I then decided what shots I wanted to use and a breakdown of the shots are shown in the video below.

Black Swan Teaser Trailer

This is the trailer that I made for the film 'Black Swan'. I filmed my friend Grace Beazleigh dancing in a black tutu and a white tutu so I could edit it in of the swan changing and to portray the concept of them being twin sisters. This did not reveal the plot too much which is what a teaser should do. I then used a voiceover from sounds of the film to add drama and to reveal the plot a bit more to excite the audience.

History of Film Trailers

Theatrical Trailers

The Parent Trap- Compared to a teaser, this is a lot longer and as a result of this, it reveals a lot more about the film regarding the storyline and it shows a lot of footage. As a family film,  it draws the audience in as the music is upbeat and happy. It has a range of shots which is interesting so targets the younger audience.

Frozen- This trailer helps to identify the key themes of the film and tells the story of the film. By breaking the trailer up with text, this helps to build up excitement for the film and this helps appeal to the younger audience. Compared to a teaser, it reveals the actual date and the music reflects the mood of the film.

The Fault in Our Stars- This trailer helps to attract the audience by adding a real sense of drama to the film. It also does not reveal too much away about the plot which is necessary for this film as otherwise the emotions of the audience will not be as effective.

Love, Rosie- This trailer is very different to the teaser, it goes more in depth than the teaser as very little footage is shown in the teaser. In my opinion, the teaser does not fulfil it's purpose of teasing the audience as it gives too little away. However, the music for this trailer reflects the mood of the film exceedingly well and this helps to grab the audience in as the positive attitude is very appealing to watch.

The Maze Runner- This trailer helps to build suspense as compared to the teaser, there is more footage but in this trailer, it is not continuous so the plot still remains a mystery. The sounds throughout are quite metal which creates a psychological feel to it. By revealing more conventions of the genre, it can help to attract the audience.

Paper Towns- The fast pace editing in this trailer keeps the audience interested and suggests it is a fast paced film with lots of things changing. The range of camera shots of the featured character implys a sense of mystery as well which allows the trailer to not reveal too much footage so the audience still have a purpose to watch the film.

The Hunger Games- In this trailer, quite a few of the shots are from a point of view, this allows the audience to feel up close and personal with the characters and for this type of genre, this creates lots of emotion and this emotion can draw the audience in as it makes them feel part of it. Also, as the title does not necessarily give away much about the plot, the audience may need to know more, in this trailer, the plot is revealed with just the right amount of detail.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- The music of this trailer is what catches the audience's attention most as the dynamics change as the trailer goes on which creates a lot of drama. However, due to the lack of dialogue, the plot is not given away at all and this lack of knowledge makes the audience want to watch it.

Jurassic World- The teaser for this film did not reveal much about the film whatsoever, for example, the teaser portrays the film to be very happy with the light music whereas this trailer reveals more and shows it to be a very jumpy film with lots of suspense, this is portrayed with the heavy music and slow paced shots. Therefore, from the teaser to the theatrical, the audience have been tricked in some ways.

Cinderella- Cinderella is a classic fairytale and everyone knows the story. Therefore, in the trailer for the film, it is not essential that the plot has to have a sense of mystery. In this trailer, there were clips throughout the film of different scenes and the music got more dynamic as the trailer progressed. This created excitement as the highlights were shown and this allowed the audience to want to watch it.

Teaser Trailers

Les Miserables- As Les Mis is already a very successful musical, people know it very well. Therefore, people know the songs and the plot. In this trailer, they revealed no continuous footage and only played one song so it did not reveal too much. This left the audience wanting more.


















War Horse- Again, it reveals not much footage so the audience are not fully aware but they use footage from different stages of the film so it leaves the audience wanting to see the film. Regarding sound, there is no dialogue so the audience do not know much at all but the music used is very powerful.

Frozen- As the target audience for this film is a younger audience, the director needs to be very careful when producing the teaser as it needs to catch their attention which is harder at their age. In this teaser, they use the most amusing parts and don't reveal much of the plot at all. This is because a proper trailer would confuse the audience so they have to have continuous footage.

Hunger games- The sound in this teaser was very tense and it left the audience wanting to find out more. It did not reveal much footage and the way they cut it created suspicion. It therefore fulfilled it's role as a teaser very well.

Jurassic World- This is a very short teaser, it does not show much at all and has some text that suggests with very minor detail what the film will be about. It suggests it is in the adventure genre by what is written. By providing very little information about every aspect, it makes the audience want to watch it.

Paper Towns- Compared to other teasers, this revealed a lot about the film and was on the line of being a theatrical trailer. It was within the time limit of a teaser but it was one of the longer ones. This suited this type of film as it is hard to tease the audience with this film as you need to reveal a fair amount of the film as it is a complex storyline so the audience would want to understand it before seeing the film.
















Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire- As everyone tended to know the story of this film due to the popularity of the novels, it was not necessary to give away the plot too much. Therefore, they teased the audience by showing some highlights of the film with dynamic music which took the audience in.

Love, Rosie- This teaser fits the comedy genre very well. It shows the most humorous parts which makes the audience want to see more. The footage they have chosen teases the audience very well. This suggests you have to be very clever in what you show when putting together a teaser trailer.
















The Fault in Our Stars- This fitted the genre of romance well as the music reflected the mood, it had just a romantic quote as a voiceover and it did not reveal much so the audience would want to find out more.

Maze Runner- The lighting in this teaser is very dark which creates a sense of uncertainty for the viewer. When this is combined with the wide range of shots, this is very dramatic and as there is not much revealed, this drama makes the audience want to watch the film when it comes out and find out more.

Differences between a teaser and a theatrical trailer

AS to A2; Research and planning

AS to A2; Real media conventions

AS to A2; Digital Technology

AS to A2; Post-production

AS to A2; Creativity

What would I change for A2 and why?

Over the course of AS Media Studies, I learnt a lot in the production of films from the preliminary to the final film opening. This progress helped me to produce the best film opening possible.

However, in A2, there are things I would change so I can improve and the 10 things I would change are listed below.



1. Casting- When it comes to casting people for the film, we would need to make sure they are all free on a particular day for filming. In AS, we had to change our cast slightly for the second shoot because one of the members was not available, this caused minor changes.



2. Storyboard- In AS, our storyboard was not as thorough as it should have been. This made it harder for us when it came to filming. Therefore, in A2, I would like to have a storyboard with lots of detail and it is accurate before we film.



3. Editing- For our AS, due to timing, we edited on my laptop. However, this meant not everyone in the group could play the part in editing easily. Therefore for A2, I would like to edit on the school computers.



4. Sound- Last year, we had quite a few problems with sound which meant we had to overdub it, this made it very difficult. In A2, we need to make sure the location is suitable so the sound is clear.



5. Genre- For A2, I would like to watch more films in the particular genre our film trailer will be in. This means we will have more inspiration and we will know more about the conventions of our genre.



6. Film name- In AS, we spent way too long choosing a film name. This meant we lost some valuable time. Therefore, in A2, I would like to spend less time choosing a name.



7. Feedback- Throughout the production process, in AS, we only gained one set of feedback throughout the process from other people and it was very useful. However, in A2, to make the best possible film, we need to get feedback regularly so we can improve it.



8. Plot- In AS, before filming we hadn't thought our plot through enough with location etc which means we had to change our plot slightly. For A2, we need to think our plot through completely before taking it any further.

9. Blogging- In AS, I did not blog as much as I would have liked to. Therefore, in A2, I will blog at the end of every lesson.

10. Research- In AS, we only conducted one survey to gain feedback about the needs of our genre. For A2, I would get a wider range of feedback and this would help us improve our film.

AS Reflection