I have looked at another trailer, 'Project X' and feel that we could take some aspects from this edgy film and use them in our trailer. It's about a group of teenagers who throw the 'most epic 17th birthday party', with shots from their digital handheld cameras, as the party gets way out of control. This film appeals to a similar target audience that we want our trailer to so I think this is a really good inspirational trailer to use for ideas. I really liked a few of the shots and the way that every shot was short and choppy, this would be a good thing to do with our trailer.
Here are a few shots which i think we could maybe re-create in our trailer:
We like this particular shot as it was a film which stopped and turned into a picture, which also had a sound effect of a camera snapping a picture. We could use something similar to this in our trailer as you can see the shot is taken outside.
We also really liked this shot as it is basically showing what happened from the inside of another car on a handheld 'home-made' film, which is similar to what we have ideas of doing but using a phone to film some footage inside a car.
We have started sketching out our storyboard for our trailer and here are our first few shots that we have come up with. We will post the rest as they are completed.
Last night I went to the cinema to see 'The House At The End Of The Street' and was slightly disappointed by it as the storyline didn't really match my expectations. However, despite this I did pick up on a few shots that I feel could possibly be included in our trailer. The main shots that caught my eye was when the main character was looking out into the woods and there was a striking shot-reverse shot between her eyes and the rustling bushes. We could include something similar as we plan to film in a similar location. Also, the use of the soundtrack helped to convey the emotions of the characters, which is definitely something we intend to achieve with our trailer.
This trailer is the trailer for the film Creep, which is a British horror film about a woman locked overnight on the London Underground who finds herself being stalked by a hideously deformed killer living in the sewers below. We decided to use this as our main influence and below is the trailer and our step to step analysis of each shot etc.
Below are some screenshots which caught our eye and why...
This part of the trailer caught our eye due to the angle of the camera, the eerie lighting and the grim picture that is in the shot. We would like to incorporate something similar to this into our trailer, for e.g. someones hands dragging through grass, or a shot of the feet as shown in this clip, but in a dirty forest/field at night.
This was one of our favorite shots which is at 1:24-1:28 which is the protagonist (main character) holding a torch to her face in pitch black. We thought this looked particularly effective and scary, and as it's a simple shot we will also think about using this in our trailer, or something of similar effect.
This shot, which is at 0:00-0:07 is a handheld shot of someone walking through a tube station, with a point of view shot. We thought this shot was particularly effective as it was the first shot, before the production logo and before any credits, and it really helped to set the tone of the film due to the lighting, and the setting, which at first glance may appear as a hospital, but as the handheld gets closer we realize it is an underground tube station. We also would like to include handheld shots as most horror trailers that we have watched include handheld camera work, as it adds to the trailer by making it jagged and unsettling, which is the feel that we would like to give off in our trailer.
Above is our final decision for our logo. Which was decided by the followers of our blog and also others that visited it, and this was the most popular font. As shown in a video a few posts earlier we showed how we would like to film our logo, we did an initial test trial with a lighter to burn the piece of A4 paper from the centre outwards to create a burning visual effect. We encountered some problems such as the paper being too small and also holding the paper with our hands and not clips. We will be filming again in the next few days with A3 paper, and some clips to hold the paper to ensure we don't burn ourselves or the area that we are filming in.
We have decided to use our own personal branded logo as displayed below...
We will use the results from the poll that we carried out to decide on the font that we want to use for our production logo.
We feel that a personally branded logo will give more of an individuality to our film and it also allows us to be more creative instead of copying and pasting a generic logo,which doesn't show off our design abilities.
We have decided to go with a simple "BC productions" B for Bianca C for Claire and productions to make it clear that we are a production company.
As you can see, we have narrowed down our design ideas for our logo and scanned it onto the blog, below is a poll where members of the public can vote for which logo they think looks the best.
Above is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailer, which I think could be used as inspiration in terms of the beginning of the trailer, as in the first 20 seconds the shots and framings used are very interesting and it's something I think would be useful to use as inspiration when building our storyboard.
This shot and the shot below I thought were really nicely filmed as it's something that looks good and would be easy and practical for us to film/have something similar.
This shot (which is a continuation from the shot before) i really liked as it is shot in a different location but the editing from the previous frame has made it run smoothly and show the audience there is a leap in time, which is something i really found effective and clever.
This shot I thought could be used as inspiration as we have discussed doing a shot within the car, we wouldn't do something like this as it might be seen as explicit. Instead we would do a shot of someone laughing, or eating.
A group of teens plan to go to a festival, they leave, ready to go, but halfway there break down and end up camping in a forest, deciding to make the most of their weekend away from home. But, after a few hours, they start going missing one by one, and a dark secret within the forest is uncovered. Little do they know, it's their own friend Will, who is also the protagonist in the play, that turns poisonous and plans their deaths.
We have decided on what we would like our production logo to be called and we decided on calling it " BC productions. We sketched a few ideas out on paper which will be scanned in on our next post, and we will be using a poll to get people to vote for which one they feel is aestetically pleasing, as we always have our audience in mind whilst making our trailer.
We then thought about how we would present our logo in a 3/4 second opening before our trailer. Our first idea was having the logo printed/written on paper and burning through it with a lighter. SO, we did a test run.
Below is our Prezi which explains in a nutshell some of our initial ideas, such as props, genre and other ideas we have had along the way, we are going to do a few more prezi's and presentations in depth on these certain areas and possibly add more, but for now this is just our initial, raw ideas.
- Last shot to be of everybody lying down in the dark (birds eye shot) surrounded b bottles, tabacco packets, clothes, and the powder paint and maybe some blood..
- powder paint
- car trip
- examples of the videos - 'we found love' 'stay awake'
- some pictures of possible locations that we would like to use
- some sketches of possible shots/how we want it to look like
- use variety of cameras/shots (possibly iPhone)
- maybe guitar
- campfire/bbq
- lots of food
- drink
- cigarettes
In this post Bianca and I are going to give a brief overview on each clip that we were given to watch in class, whether it was a Trailer or a Teaser Trailer.
The first Trailer (feature) that we watched was called "Looper" which is about a killer who works for the mob of the future and recognises one of his targets as his future self.
The main characteristics of this trailer are
- fast paced action/quick cuts to represent the fast paced movement of the film.
- set in a big city
- voiceovers of characters
- gun and physical violence
-fades in addition to the quick cuts
We think to a certain extent this trailer is effective as it grabs your attention due to the fast paced movement and action within the trailer, there is also a direct mention of the theme of the film which is time travel. On the other hand We feel it's problematic as it looks like every other action dilm due to the way that it's been presented, so after about 30 seconds we lost interest in the trailer as there's nothing thats particularly unique. The music is very generic - thumps and subtle waves of dubstep to create an adrenaline filled atmosphere is something that I see across the board of action films in the last 2 years.
Below is some of the stills that we found interesting in the trailer "Looper".
The next trailer we watched was called "Man of Steel" which we found mostly boring due to the shots taken and we don't feel that it did the film justice as the title "Man of Steel" portrayed it to be an action film but instead it took a very calm approach. On the other hand we liked the fact that there was very little talking as it allowed us to focus on what we were watching rather than what the characters were saying, the music chosen also complimented what we were viewing, which on the whole made it different from other trailers we have seen in the past.
As you can see from this poster, it shows a completely different picture to what was shown in the trailer which was the fact that we were deceived to believe that it was a calm, emotional film but the poster portrays something completely different due to the font, the colours and the muscly figure which is featured on the poster.
The main characteristics of this trailer are:
- Calming, emotional music
- Very little dialogue
- Shots are longer, to show there is less "action" in this film
- Boat imagery
- Visual effects towards the end
Here are some of our favourite stills and why:
This particular shot is featured right at the beginning of the trailer, we like this because it sets the mood of the trailer as we associate the colours blue with calm and water with tranquility. We would also like to use something like this in our trailer as it's an easy shot to achieve but has an amazing effect.
This shot is also featured in the first 30 seconds of the trailer, which shows a bird flying through a clouded sky over a house. We would like to incorporate something similar into our trailer as we like the way it's been filmed and also the eeriness of the sky would be effective in our trailer.
This shot is featured in the second half of the trailer (around 1min) and it shows a boy running through grass, it is shot at a low angle. We like this shot the most as it's unique and something that we would definitely keep in mind when shooting our trailer as we have ideas to shoot it at a similar location that is used in this shot.
The next trailer that we watched was called "The Master" which is about the relationship between a charismatic intellectual known as "The Master" whose faith-based organisation begins to catch on in American , and a young drifter who becomes his right hand man.
Below are some screenshots which caught our eyes
This picture caught our attention as it was very unique and colourful from the rest of the trailer. The pose the woman is doing is also quite youthful and fun, which is something that we would like to incorporate into our trailer.
This shot caught our attention also because again, it is something very youthful and reminded us of a teen for e.g. jumping off Brighton pier. We would like to include something similar, but not something of this scale as of course we have to consider health and safety whilst filming, but at the same time this is a concept which really gripped us whilst watching this trailer.
The features of this trailer include:
- Powerful voiceover
- Love/couples
- Fighting
- Gun crime / violence
- Credits at the end
Personally we quite liked this trailer as it has a quirkier approach in comparison to the other trailers that we have watched. Although we think the quirkiness may limit the audience that views this film, not just the trailer. As it seems as if it would be an adult film, for e.g. 25+
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