Target Audience Research

For our target audience research, we decided to ask a number of different people that we considered to be our target audience a couple of questions.  They consisted of describing a mood board and also what name they would prefer the film to be called.  This broadened our research of the film title as we already had a poll on our blogger homepage with a voting system.  Below is the video that we created with the target research in.

Narrative Theory

As a class, we created short films to represent a particular theory.  Our group created a short film for Levi Strauss, it is the first film within this movie.

Logo Ideas

We have been researching logo ideas, and we want to involve the idea of something falling, due to our name being 'Fallen Productions'.  We have therefore come up with a mood board of different images and ideas which we could incorporate into a logo.  We are also thinking of making an animation for the beginning of our film trailer to appear as the production animation.  Below is the mood board of our ideas:

Following these ideas we have created a production animation which you can view here

Marketing Research and Analysis

For our film trailer, we have been researching how to promote and attract an audience into watching the film. Below is an example of a method of promotion.

Carrie:
This film wanted to market their remake of the film, and therefore decided to do a coffee shop prank, which was related to the film.  The prank consisted of a 'possessed' women who has 'telekinetic powers'.  Below is the video which was filmed throughout the duration of the prank.

Title Poll Results

We created a voting poll to see what other people thought was the best name for our film trailer.  This can be seen in a previous post.  The voting poll for the title name has now closed and the results are below:

The results show that 'Mandy' was voted for the most.  'Fast Lane' and 'Haze' were joint 2nd with 4 votes and 'Pep Love' last with only two votes.  From these results, it tells us what our target audience would want our film to be called, which we will debate and see whether it agrees with our story.

As well as the poll, we will be looking to ask some more people and interview them to see what they think would be the best name for our film trailer and why.  This will deepen our target audience research, and will ensure to fulfil the needs of those who are most likely to watch our film trailer.

Location Pictures

We decided to take photos of places in London as this is one of the locations we were considering for our trailer.

Our favourite image is the underground station sign as some people may link this to where beggers or buskers go to try and get money and they can also use it as a place for shelter, secondly the sign is brightly lit but high up this could be implying that there is hope or happiness but its just far away or needs to be found.

Secondly we liked the picture of the begger as you can see the floor is really dirty and wet and he's all alone sitting at the side showing he has possibly no friends or no one to turn to.

Film Trailer Rating

British Board of Film Classification

Looking at other social realism films, we have decided that it would be appropriate for our trailer to be rated 15.  We feel that the use of drugs, alcohol, and smoking would be more applicable for the age if 15 and over.  Below we have included some examples of social realism films, and their ratings.  This helped us to distinguish the differences in the films, and why they were classified their rating.

Looking for Eric: 15

• Contains very strong language and soft drug use

The Brown Bunny: 18

• Contains strong real sex

The Wrestler: 15

• Contains strong bloody wrestling violence, strong language, sex & drug use

Eastern Promises: 18

• Contains strong bloody violence

Paris, Texas: 12

• Contains strong language and moderate sex references

From the examples, there is a lot of variation between different social realism films and how they are rated.  It appears that the use of drug use and strong violence gives the films a higher classification (usually 15 or 18), and that moderate scenes of sex references have a lower rating.

From the research, we feel that the rating of our film trailer, 15, would be appropriate, as there will be the appearance of drug and sex use and possibly moderate violence.

Concept Ideas



We looked into other similar concept trailers and pictures, to get an understanding of the

aesthetics and shots that we wanted our trailer to have.

This music video gave us ideas for locations, colours and mise-en-scene -

Ed Sheeran - 

                 A Team

Ideas and concepts

• Black and white
• Silhouettes
• Close-ups
• Dark make-up
• Baggy clothing
• Low angle shots
• Establishing shots
• Drugs
• Blurred background
• City location

Social Networking - Twitter

We made a twitter account as we felt that we could post information about the blog and development of the trailer. Also from previous research we have found that using social networking is a quick way of marketing the film trailer and promoting it. 

Twitter- FallenProd13

We have been tweeting constantly and updating the twitter page to allow our audience to stay involved during the process.

Film Title

Film Title Initial Ideas and Research

We chose our personal favourite 5 film titles and then asked a small group to tell us their opinion to finalise our final choice

 --- Angel Dust

    --- Haze

    --- Pep Love

--- Mandy

    --- Fast Lane 

 

We found this information from the Frank website (drug awareness) We chose the name

'Mandy' as it links to the drug MDMA. 

We also included this poll voting feature on our blog to gain as much feedback for the title of our film as possible.

Ideas from Ed Sheeran's 'Give Me Love'

1. Composition is interesting and easy to recreate, the lighting and surrounding are showing that she is afraid to come out of the dark and be involved.

2. She's looking down which indicates she could be depressed or thinking about something sad. The light shining on her implies she's an angel or the main focus of the video.

3. The establishing shot of the girl sitting on the bed in the bedroom makes her look small representing how she is in the real world and the impact she has or how she feels.

4. She's sitting on the bed with her legs huddled to her portraying she's cold and needs warmth implying she's feeling insecure or worried about something.

5. The girl is once again sitting down and looking to the floor showing that she's feeling the same throughout the video.

6. The long shot of her standing at the standing at the station has her positioned to the right and the large buildings tower over her- representing her as small and insignificant. This shot could be re-created well within our trailer.

7. This abstract scene of the girl standing in a bright room implies she's possibly on drugs or having illusions as there's another slight image to the right of her as well this could be seen as a heaven for her because she's wearing angel wings and doesn't seem to be looking down.

8. The scene of her sitting on the bed is re-occurring indicating that its an important place to her maybe somewhere that she grew up or her home. 

9.The two wooden models are hugging each other which could be a representation of what she wants or once had with someone.

 

Costume Ideas and Ispiration

Here i am able to show a few inspiration shots for what we want our main character to dress like. On the right you will see India, and we tried to recreate the same effect by showing the clothes she is wearing. We feel that having the correct costume is very important to portray who the character is and what age she is at.

 

 

 Below we have found a few ideas of how we could show the costuming when it is decided. We felt that these were very artistic and look professional.

Props

India spinning with sparkler spinning - portraying her dream like state after substance abuse.

Shots featured in Rihanna's 'Found Love' Music Video

We thought the background spinning and the foreground in focus really emphasised the drug use featured in the video as they appear unaware and their surroundings are moving quicker than they are.

The video was recorded in Northern Ireland in a council estate.

Setting

Above are shots featured in Rihanna's 'Found Love' music video 

we wanted to choose a similar setting for our trailer, we found the Heygate Estate as seen below which is a grunge and gritty urban area. A well suited setting for a social realism genre as it so realistic

Above are 2 of the settings we vision to use in our trailer, I edited them using a blur effect to create a dream like, haze effect. 

Inspiration Shot Ideas

Here are some more shots that we could use for our trailer. We like the idea of using an eye pupil changing size which could show how the drugs are affecting the main character. The other pictures are showing how lost she is and how she feels drugs are the option to make her feel better. We are thinking of using some of these shots within our trailer. 

Above is a short film featured in the Tropfest film festival. Tropfest is the largest short film festival in the world. Tropfest began in 1993 as a screening for 200 people in a café in Sydney but has since become the largest platform for short films in the world. 

Narrative Theory

Conventions of a Film Trailer

We did some research into the conventions of a film trailer to ensure that we had all the necessary elements to produce a relevant piece of work.  Below is a picture that we created which shows all the conventions, and explanations of why they are often involved.

 

From this research, we then looked at two film trailers that were related to our film genre, social-realism.  These were La Haine and Kidulthood.

Example shots

 

The over the head shots make her seem small and powerless which is what we want her to seem like as though she's helpless and has no where to go.
The bottom right picture is our favourite as she looks straight into the camera as though she's looking at us and she has an angry look on her face like she's blaming us.

Our favourite shots are when she's holding her knees as though she's huddling up for warmth giving the sense that she has no other clothes to put on because she may be homeless or has no other place to go and what she has on are all her belongings.
The composition of the shots are effective as she is sitting near the bottom and being able to see right to the top gives the impression that she cant reach the top portraying her life or her situation at the time.

Close-ups show her facial expression and also how her make-up and her will be. Her hair looks scruffy and unrushed adding to the dirty and vulnerable look as well as her dark slightly smudged eye makeup drawing attention to making her look tired.

Inspiration - Makeup

 

Dark eye makeup on the actor for this trailer will give the effect that she may feel as though she has to wear a lot of makeup to feel confident and wants to cover up.
Secondly it will make her face look much paler because of the contrast and this adds to the vulnerable and weak character.
The images where the mascara has smudged because of tears this looks effective because it shows she is crying and this would work well within the trailer to add emotion.
Here is a link to a YouTube tutorial on how to create a grunge eye makeup look- we will be using the same techniques for the trailer.

We learnt alot of techniques from this video, which we can incorporate into our characters style.

To see our response to this video click here

Fashion Editorial Inspiration

We have gathered many different images which we think are relevant to the characteristics of our trailer. We have looked into different costumes, shots, backgrounds and style.

Costume
After considering the types of clothing we think our actor should wear, we have decided on the 'grunge'  look which is shown in pictures above. We will be taking an array of pictures of options for costuming and updating the blog in due time. We feel that the 'grunge' look fits in with our theme and can portray the idea we have decided on. After looking at our inspiration videos which are shown in another post you are able to see the kind of look we are going for.

Shots
The different shots will be key to making the trailer stand out from the other social realism trailers around. We feel that we have created a different spin on the social realism feel that is already about. We are able to make the trailer exciting but still emotional with the use of music and shots we will create. The shots we use will have to be in many different locations to feel like you are getting a look into the characters life and to try and engage the audience.

Backgrounds
This is very important as the location and background of the shots need to stick with the 'grunge' feel that we are displaying. Therefore we will be going to look at different locations and taking photos to show the blog. We think using the different textures of brick and walls will create good backdrops for our photo shoot that we are doing.

Style
The pictures above show a lot of quirky ideas which fit our actor perfectly. This therefore allows us to explore these ideas and make them become a artistic idea for our trailer. The idea is that she is lost and confused with growing up into her adolescent stage and she doesnt know how to do this. This will be shown during the trailer with the style of the shots, costume, locations and props.

Codes and Conventions of Social Realism

Cast

Headshots

She is wearing dark eye makeup in all of these images but the first image is edited differently showing a much darker outline around her eyes yet the rest of the photos make her skin look pale and if the make-up was applied darker it would give an all round good effect. Her hair in these images looks neat therefore we will be taking more images with her hair slightly different as to know what looks best for the trailer.

The last photo shows her looking sad and vulnerable by the facial expression and her eyes look glazed over as though her mind is elsewhere, this image could be potentially used on the poster or website.

Now that we have taken these photos, full body and costume ideas will be researched into to know what clothes she will be wearing and how they will look in different lighting also what looks affective to the genre and location.



Once we found the actor for our trailer we took headshots to begin with so that we could get an understanding of what we needed to apply for her make-up to link in with the theme, secondly to also edit the pictures to see what different effects looked like with her face being the main focus as that way we could use it in the trailer





Music Research

The music for the background of a trailer is not always in the films soundtrack, its purpose is to complement, support and integrate the sale messaging of the trailer.
A trailer may also incorporate music from other sources possibly from other successful films or hit songs which could subconsciously entice audiences.

Once we decided on our genre, Social Realism, for our film trailer we have researched into different types of music which we could incorporate into our trailer. After we had looked into the music we have been inspired by many of the Ed Sheeran videos with the music and also the shots he has used.

Ed Sheeran - Give me Love:

Ed Sheeran- A Team:

 

 

The reason we liked these songs in particular is because we feel he captures the emotion and meaning through the lyrics.  Also the range of shots that are included gave us ideas that we could use in our trailer. 

After discussing whether we wanted a score or a soundtrack for our trailer we have decided on a soundtrack. The reason for this is that we want to tell a story through the lyrics. We have researched into many different artists and we have decided on using Louis Nevison (a boy from our school) who has a raspy voice that we think will fit with the genre we are going for. 

Below we have provided you with music he has already written.

The Song That I Sung:

Little Miss Understanding:

Rihanna's Found Love Video:

"It's like you're screaming,

            and no one can hear,

you almost feel ashamed,

        that someone could be that important,

   that without them you feel like nothing.

             No one will ever understand how much it hurts.

You feel hopeless.  Like nothing can save you. 

        Then when it's over and it's gone, you almost wish that you               

   could have all that bad stuff back, so that you could have the   good."

We found the narration within the first 50 seconds of the music video very effective and relevant to one of our themes of drug abuse and addiction. 

Analysing Posters

Below is the initial research into our poster, we analysed the design of popular existing film posters. Looking at tag lines/writing included and discussed interesting features we could incorporate into our own product.

Juno - 2007 

'A comedy about growing up... and the bumps along the way.'

The Great Gatsby - 2013

'Can't repeat the past?... Of course you can!'

Black Swan - 2010 

'

Music

Looking at the different types of music you can get for a film trailer, it is divided into two. A score which is normally just music without words or a soundtrack which is normally where they have a song with lyrics and this is normally sung by a artist that is well known in the music industry. 

I have found two examples of a soundtracks that you will hear and it would instantly make  you think of that particular film which is what we want to try and achieve. 

James Bond - Sky fall 

The Mortal Instruments- Almost is Never Enough

Jaws - Jaws theme tune 


Almost is never enough - The Mortal Instruments 
 

This song is very much a sad intimate song which makes the listener feel emotion and this is one thing we want our soundtrack to be like. The idea of having a soundtrack allows us to write it the way we want it to sound rather than having to fit our trailer to a piece of music that is already constructed. 

 

James Bond - Skyfall - Adele 

This song is very dramatic which fits in with the genre of the film. Its very intense and allows the audience to feel immersed into the music. The shots in the trailer fit with the lyrics which makes the audience to be able to understand the idea of what could happen in the film. 

 

Jaws - Jaw's theme tune 

 

This is the theme tune to the jaws film, but is well known in the film industry. When hearing the music it makes you think of the film and that is what we want our film to have. The music is quite simple but has a lot of power behind it.