influential directors

Influential directors

 

 

The director that I have found most influential throughout the production of making our trailer, is Shane Meadows. Shane Meadows moved to Nottingham when he was 20 and found a passion for making short films, however, he was unable to show his work as there wasn't any film festivals around the area. eventually, one of his friends started one in a local cinema which made Shane Meadows films really popular. He has won numerous awards for his work such as, British Independent Film Award, Douglas Hickox Award, BAFTA Award for Best British Film, The Edinburgh International Film Festival Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film.

 

Some films that Shane Meadows directed:

- This is England

- Dead mans shoes

- A room for Romeo brass

film pitch presentation

Film pitch presentation



 

This is the powerpoint that Lela and I created for our film presentation. We included codes and conventions which feature in the genre of our film, character profiles, the plot, our production logo, the font we have chosen to use and the target audience. Josh and Jamie presented the powerpoint in front of an audience which we recorded.

audience theory

Audience theory 

Two step flow:

The two step flow theory is where there is a main opinion leader and they share their views on a song or a movie trailer on facebook or word of mouth and then other people take note of what they say and then look at it themself. By promoting the media through the two step flow, it gets across to people faster because the followers of the opinion leader become opinion leaders themself if they go on and spread the word.

Hypodermic needle:

The hypodermic needle theory implies that the media has a fast and powerful influence on the audience through the mass media by injecting them with information that is usually false which influences the way the audience think and feel about a subject.




Uses and gratification:
The uses and gratifications theory focus on why people use a particular mode of media rather than judge it on content. Blumler and Katz (1973) came up with four reasons as to why people may watch television:

1. Information:
People may watch it in order to find out about recent/relevant events which are happening in the area or around the world. People also might watch it to gain knowledge to learn about new things.

2. Personal identity:
People might watch it because they are finding models of behaviour. Or it might be because you develop 'celebrity crushes', so you follow a certain programme because you like an actor.

3. Intergration and social interaction:
Some people may watch it because they feel like they can relate to specific circumstances or events and relate to it. It can also be watched because everyone else is watching a programme or a film and you don't want to feel left out so you watch it aswell.

4. Entertainment:
Finally, media can be used to escape from your problems and just simply relax!

Todorov's narrative structure

Todorov's narrative theory. 

Using Todorov's narrative theory, we have linked the plot of our film in with this theory. The equilibrium is where one of the main characters, Stuart, is getting bullied by his step brother Jake and his friends from college. The disruption of the narrative is when Stuart commits suicide by over dosing as he can't deal with the bullying he has put with for so long any longer. The recognition of the disruption is that Jake realises that him and his friends driven Stuart to taking his own life. The attempt to repair the disruption is when Jake kills all of his friends because they bullied Stuart, that is why our film is called 'Redemption'. Finally, the return to the equilibrium is where Jake is faced with the dilemma 'Should I kill myself?'. 

production logo

Production logo.



 This is the production logo for our film, 'THRILL' ER CLOCK productions'. With planning by the whole group, we decided that this is ideally how we planned our logo to look like with the clock and the writing in front of it. Joshua made the production logo on photo shop by getting a picture of a clock and then edited the background colour of the clock so it is yellow/brown. Initially, we didn't plan for the writing to be brown, we wanted the writing black so that it was bold and stood out. However, when it came to it, we decided that we couldn't really read it very well as it merged in with the hands of the clock. The brown writing creates an old looking title which creates mystery and suspense. The cropped image of the clock creates a feel that because we haven't shown the full clock, we are not giving much away to the audience so it keeps them guessing. The name of our production logo 'THRILL'ER CLOCK' is a play on words as it is making it sound like a time so it is catchy and would stay in people's mind.

 

The image of the clock which we taken from google:

 

 

 

 

 

We used photo shop to edit the clock and create our production  logo:

 



 

font choices

Font choices for Redemption

Our film is called Redemption. As the genre of our film is a thriller/drama hybrid, we thought that the best type of font for our film would be big, bold and in capital letters. We thought that the best colours to have the title of the film were either red of black as they have the best connotations. Black connotes dark, mystery, unknown and death. These all fit into our film so black is a good colour to use.

This font is also big, block capitals. The colour of the writing connotes blood, death and warning which also fits in with our film. By using big letters, it makes the title stand out more which makes it more memorable for the audience.

This font is similar to the first one, it has the same connotations as the font is still block capitals and big.

Although this font is big and in block capitals, it has more of a country and western look to it by having the gaps in between the letters. 

We made this title on font space. The font is big, red block capitals which stands out and catches your attention. The stratches at the bottom of the writing makes it look mysterious and create a rough looking effect.

This title was also made on font space. We have chose this one for the title of our film as the white writing on the black back ground has opposite connotation. The white connotes innocence and purity while the black background connotes danger and death. These are the main feaures in our film.

teaser trailers which were most popular in the questionnaire

Teaser trailers.



The girl with the dragon tattoo was one of the trailers which came out most popular in our questionnaire. From looking at this teaser trailer, the main thing which is included in the trailer is how fast paced it is. As the trailer is fast paced, it keeps the audience interested and guessing what is going to happen next. From our results of the questionnaire, one of the main aspects of what people expect to see in a teaser trailer is fast paced to keep them interested. A montage of images is also used at the start of the trailer which creates suspense as you wonder what is happening and the only way you can find out is by going to watch it at the cinema. By using a montage of images it makes the trailer face paced which entices the audience.

Editing:
The majority of the editing is done through using straight cuts, these create fast paced shots in order for the trailer to move along quicker. These are used throughout the trailer so that the audience stay interested. There are also cut aways from the actors facial expressions which creates suspense as the audience are left wondering why the actor is looking the way they do.  A montage of images is also used at the start of the trailer which creates suspense as you wonder what is happening and the only way you can find out is by going to watch it at the cinema. By using a montage of images it makes the trailer face paced which entices the audience.

Camera shots:
The establishing shot of the trailer is from someones point of view which also uses a tracking shot so you feel like your going up the drive with them, the effect of this makes the audience feel included as you feel like your in the car with them. Reaction shots are used to show the reactions of the actors face which indicate to the audience that something bad is going to happen which would make the audience feel intrigued to find out what it is. A crane shot is used to look at the car crash, by using a crane shot, it shows the audience that something bad has happen and it creates an action code.

Music:
The music of the trailer has a rock feel to it as drums and a bass guitar are used so it is non-deigetic sound. The use of the drums makes the trailer seem very fast paced, especially as the images are being cut away very quickly. 

results of the questionnaire

Results of the questionnaire.



1. Are you male or female?

We asked more male as the target audience of our film is more aimed at males as the plot and the genre connote a more male audience.



2. How old are you?

The age catergory for our film is 15-24 years old. The majority of the people we asked, we seventeen which fits in with our age limit.



3.  Do you watch thrillers?

From this graph, it showed that 17 people out of 20 watched thrillers and 3 people didnt. This shows that if this was a real film, there would be a good chance that quite a lot of people would go and watch it.



4. What is your favourite thriller?

The results of this question, left us with a variety of thrillers which we could look at as they cam out as the most popular, we have looked at some of these trailers as inpiration for out trailer.



5. What kind of conventions do you expect to see in a thriller?

As these are the most popular conventions what people expect to see in a thriller, it is essential that we included some of the most popular ones in out trailer.



6. Do you like the sound of a thriller drama?

20 out of 20 people liked the sound of a thriller/drama hybrid.



7. If I said thriller drama, what comes to your head first?

From this question, the results show that people have near enough the same ideas of what a thriller/drama is. From these results, it gives us an idea of what types of conventions we should be including within out trailer.

8. How often do you go to the cinema?

This shows that most people go to the cinema monthly which could mean that people could go and see our film in the cinema. 

9. Does seeing the teaser trailer of a film make you want to go and see it?

All of the people that took part in the questionniare would go and see a film if they thought the teaser trailer was good. This clearly shows that teaser trailers are a very big part in the success of the film.



10. What makes a good teaser trailer?

The main things in which make a good teaser trailer is action and unrevealing. These are the things that we need to included in our teaser trailer so that people will want to go and see our film.

questionnaire

The questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that we created to find out what kind of conventions we need to put in our drama/thriller teaser trailer. We collected the questionnaires back in and put the results in charts to show what we had found. By doing this questionnaire, we found out what the most popular thrillers were so we can get some inspiration from some of the trailers.

representation of teenages in the media

Representation.

We know that from the media, teenagers are represented negatively and the way they are represented within films and TV programmes backs up the negative labelling. The TV programme skins portrays teenagers as violent, sex objects, drugs users and alcoholics so it is no surprise that people see every teenager like that as there as no programmes in which portray them in a good light.



Films such as kidulthood and shank also give teenagers bad connotations as there is lots of violence, drug and alcohol use, parties and sex. By representing teenagers in this way, it gives them a bad name as when people see things in the media about teenage crime, they believe that every teenager is like that.

audience profile mood board

Audience mood board.

 

 

 

 

We created a audience profile mood board for the target audience of our trailer/film 'Redemption'. We decided that the target audience for our film is male ages 15-24 years old. We chose this target audience as we found from our research that it is mostly males aged 15-24 years old that like to go and watch thrillers/dramas and also the characters in our film are all male so they would fell more engaged within the film.