Conventions to Follow

Although I have talked about what the various conventions in film, I have yet to discuss what conventions that I hope our film will follow and utilise. As the film we have chosen to do is an action film, it has elements of a psychological thriller. There will be fight scenes featured in our trailer, but they will not be a long one, rather we will show small segments of the fight scene, such as a punch before going back to an interview. This would follow the fast pacing of other trailers. Many thriller trailers include the quick cuts from fast paced clip to longer, slower paced scenes. An example of this actually includes the trailer form the film Smiley. This, however, is just a typical horror film, but the way some of the cuts are done, and also the way that Keith David acts, is very similar to how we want our film trailer to go.

Screenplay

Detective opens door, lights fade on, detective walks with various files in an authoritive manner. The camera moves from behind detective and focuses on the man sitting at the table as the detective walks towards him. Over the shoulder shot follows the detective as he sits down.
"Interview starts at 17:45, present are DI Benson questioning Adam Beckett in connection to the murders of Steven Lock and Pippin Catung".
Camera pans to a shot of them both sitting and staring at each other. fade to intertitles.
"So you are a self proclaimed hero"
Another intertitle
"Someone who thinks they can do my job better than I can?"
Flashback to a punch in the face.
"So tell me Mr Hero, what gives you the right to go round punchin' and going as far as killing people?"
A man lies on the floor and is struck with a metal instrument of some kind.
"I'm waiting!"
Fade to black
"Moral authority has been laid to rest, world opinion is no more than a game show and the difference between good and evil is about as relavant as changing channels..."
Lots of shots of main character beating and killing people, intertitles of actors names until...
"So whats it gonna be huh? You gonna speak up or... well what...?"
Main raises head... INSERT TITLE HERE

Media Institution Idea for Film

 

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Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1983. It produces feature films and several television productions, including films starring comic actor Rowan Atkinson. This is a prominant British movie company which has been ascociated with many good films such as Johnny English Reborn, and Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy. This would be a good film institution because of it's good reputation to take smmaler film companies ideas, and make them larger.
Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The company has been responsible for backing a large number of films made in the United Kingdom. The company's first production was Walter, directed by Stephen Frears, which was released in 1982. Film 4 productions has produced many independant and smaller films, including 127 hours, This is England and Tyrannosaur. This would be suited for our production because it too is very small in size and monetry balance.

Story Idea 3

At school, the boy is in a sociology lesson learning about gangs and crime, this obviously strikes a nerve for him, so when the teacher asks him what his opinion is, he responds with single words associated to bad things. Halfway through his wording, a boy in his class tells him to shut his mouth because he is being disrespectful, to which he is responded to with a witty comeback, after a brief row the boy lashes out he keeps punching and no one can get him off and meanwhile he does not let the other boy get a hit in. The boy sends him to hospital and is on his final warning, due to recent events he is not kicked out, the boy is confronted by his friend, and she asks him about what all of the aggression in class was about, a conversation ensues and the boy tells her about his act the other night, she is shocked an angry at him for putting himself in danger, and tells him that there is nothing he can do to resurrect their dead friend and violence isn’t the answer. The boy walks away without saying a word.

At a warehouse late at night, more of the gang are mucking around and doing antisocial things, when all of a sudden they hear a smash and metal crunching, as they walk up to the door to open it, the find that the door is rigged to explode and set off smoke. Accidentally setting it off, the frantically swing and fire their weapons and fists shouting at the intruder as they are picked off one by one. As the smoke dies down the gang members on the outside of the smoke can only see the unconscious bodies of the gang members, as the three of them walk up to the unresponsive bodies, one of the bodies jumps up and karate chops the gang member above him in the neck and before the other two can fire their weapons, they are swiftly beaten up, the intruder picks up a pistol from the floor.

Above in a small room, the gang leader is smoking with two other members when another member rushes through the door frantically warning them that there is an intruder. The leader and his guards shrug it off laughing at him when from behind the messenger, the intruder puts him in a headlock and holds the pistol to his head, and the two guards raise their weapons. The leader laughs at the stupid attempt to kill him and that he doesn’t care if the messenger dies, the messenger is instantly shot by the guards as the intruder immediately shoots the light. The room is very dark but is visible enough to see the outline of people. The leader mocks the intruder telling him that he is good but it’s only a matter of time before he dies. The leader lights his desk lamp to find that both of his guards are unconscious on the floor. The leader panics, telling the intruder to show their self. The intruder from under the desk quickly pulls the legs of the leader and as the leader falls, he hits his head on the radiator, dazing him. The intruder tells him about a murder he committed the other day on three teens, the leader groggily insists that he doesn’t know what the intruder is talking about. The intruder shoots him in the foot. As the leader cries out in pain, the intruder grabs the leader’s shirt and pulls him closer being as intimidating as possible. The leader eventually confesses telling him that the teens life was meaningless and it didn’t matter if he was dead or not. While laughing, the intruder grabs a bottle of whiskey, a glass, a cigarette and a lighter as the leader tells the intruder that he would be good for the gang. The intruder agrees, as he hands him the cigarette, glass and whiskey bottle.

Story Idea Part 2

The boy is traumatised over the death of his best friend and can no longer study; he is shown to now have mental breakdowns and refuses all help from psychiatrists. He has a very short fuse at school and is regularly getting into fights; his friend exclaims that he needs to see someone as he is breaking down. At home, his father talks to him about the situation and asks him if he can remember what his father told him when he was younger about superheroes, he points out that he now has to act like a superhero and try to move on, the boy thanks his father as his father leaves his room and starts to think. He takes his father’s advice too seriously and comes up with an idea while staring at his the superhero mask he wore as a child.

The gang are shown loitering in the streets scaring passers-by at around midnight and threatening them, one of the gang members leaves to urinate and is ambushed when he does so. Hearing his screams, two of the gang members check out what has just happened. As they reach where the gang member was, a rope goes round their throats and they get smashed into the fence by the rope from over the fence. As the last gang member wonders where the other two have gone, he is pulled from behind and hit against a wall by the throat, the gang member pulls out a knife only to have it hit out of his hand, the gang member asks who the figure is before the figure responds asking about who committed a murder a week ago and where he can be found, the gang member denies at first saying that he will never tell, the figure kicks the gang member in the genitals and asks again, after receiving the answer, he head-butts the gang member knocking him out.

The news the next day states that a group of the gang members where found unconscious in an alley near a train station and were apparently attacked by a masked man from eye-witness reports. The father, who is watching the news, asks his son if he heard about this, the son responds with a smirk and tells his father how they got what they deserved.

Story Idea Part 1

(The following story outline is limited to a story synopsis I wrote some time ago, it is not completed and is simply for the idea of the trailer)

The story starts with a young boy, playing with superhero toys, his father comes in to see what he’s doing and plays with him, while telling him a story of how superheroes really exist, the young boy expresses his dream of becoming a hero and helping people and his father gives him the motivation that he will do someday, he knows it.

The young boy is now a teenager, having forgotten his dream and is living out life studying and achieving his grades so he can become a lawyer, he is studying in his room when his father comes in and asks what he is doing and points out that they will probably work together someday as his father is a police officer, the father also points out that he is surprised his son doesn’t go mad with the amount of work his son does. Nevertheless, the father leaves his son with his work, while the boy is reading the news he sees that a local gang have struck again the day before, having put a boy in critical condition for not bowing to them as he walked past, this sickens the boy and this compels him to ask his father more on the subject. His father tells him all about the gang, and how it is impossible to charge them because there is just so many. The boy wishes he could do something.

The next day he is walking to school with his two best friends, he talks to them about the gang and that he feels that his mind is nagging at him to do something about it. His friends both steer him away from this idea because they don’t want him doing anything stupid.

In school, the boy and his friends are studying when a group of harsh boys walk in and start making noise, one of his friends points out how much he hates them, while the boy simple shrugs them off, stating that if they want to act like children they can, as long as they don’t hurt anyone. Later, as the boy and his friends walk past the harsh boys who are throwing a tennis ball at a group of younger children and being in general intimidating, the boy approaches asking if they could leave the kids alone, the harsh boys are puzzled asking what he is going to do about it when one of the boys friends interject saying that he’s not going to do anything, to forget it and prompting the boy to leave, as the harsh boys exclaim that the boy should heed her advice cause he was about to get hurt. The boy and his friends turn around and begin walking when the harsh boys throw the tennis ball and hit a kid in the head, the kid starts crying and the boy lashes out in rage. When both parties pull the two fighting boys off each other, the harsh boy swears that he will get him back. On the walk home with his friends, they call the boy an idiot for getting into the fight, the boy who is still bleeding responds saying that he doesn’t like how some people are treated and that he had to do something, he says that he deserved what he got. They are stopped by a gang of five teens stating that they heard about what happened with the fight, they ask if the boy if he is afraid of them, the boy simply ignores them and walks past, not batting an eyelid. A gang member punches him for not respecting him and this causes the boy to respond a fight ensues where one of the boys friends are stabbed. As the gang runs off, the boy and his friend panic and call the ambulance.

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer Analysis

From the sparse opening musical accompaniment to the woozy images of Gotham in the half-light, TDKR is be continuing with the stark mood that dominated the conclusion of Nolan’s previous film.

The Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) we see as the trailer opens is without doubt a clear echo of the Bruce we were introduced to at the start of Batman Begins. Bearded, pained and haunted by the past, it’s a clear indication that the fall Batman took at the end of The Dark Knight has truly left its mark.
Also making a reappearance from the first movie is Wayne Manor. If TDK saw Bruce/Batman at the height of his power, living and working in the heart of the city, this seemingly broken incarnation has retreated to the fringes of his hometown, hiding away from the world inside his rebuilt family home.

Tom Hardy’s Bane nonetheless gets a few choice moments. We get shots of Bane fighting Batman underground as well as a brief shot of the man mountain seemingly sans his pain-relieving mask.
And then there’s the small matter of Bane blowing up the bridges linking Gotham to the mainland.
Despite Bane’s appetite for destruction, the two most interesting moments featuring the masked man revolve around the moments when he speaks 

Action Movie Music- Examples

This piece of music, whilst not particularly suited to the ideas behind our film idea, this does display how grand the music for a battle scene can be. The music is essentially the battle taking place, with the brass and woodwind section really letting the audience know when the empire is winning and that there is a lot at stake. This is however, more suited to larger battles rather than what will be in our movie, which involves mainly small skirmishes.

This music, while it does sound quite grand, makes it seem more like a smaller affair than that of the hoth battle theme, with many areas in the music displaying quieter sounds before erupting into a more dramatic piece. This could work with our super hero gone wrong movie with some of the quieter pieces in this track, they may however, ruin the idea of suspense when the brass section kicks off. This may simply be the style of music in the action genre in the 1980's.

 

Horror Movie Music- Examples

Horror Films generally tend to be slow paced and eerie, with a sudden loud noise to break the tention sometimes, some horror film's music may be faster paced and creepy instruments like violin, but slow and eerie is usually the case.
This sound clip is from the film "The Ring" it is a perfect example of creepy and slow music:

this clip appears to be a little girl singing to music which adds to creepy atmosphere.

 

Here is an example of a louder and faster theme for a Horror film which edges onto Thriller type music. This is the theme music of "Saw":

                                     

As you can hear, these two themes are very different to one another, mainly reflecting on the threat in the film, while "The Ring" is very mysterious, "Saw" is very extreme and gets straight to action.

Questionnaire

FILM QUESTIONNAIRE

What is your favourite genre of film?
Horror 2 Action 3 Sci-Fi/Fantasy 3 Romance 3 Comedy 4 Documentary 0

What sort of film would you like to see being made?
Horror 2 Action 3 Sci-Fi/fantasy 4 Romance 0 Comedy 5 Documentary 1

What age rating films do you watch?
U, 2 PG, 3 12, 3 15, 5 18, 2

Do you like super hero films?
Yes 6 No 3 Don't mind 6

Costumes

Costumes are very important in film because they are there to do lots of things, superheroes will often wer a really tight costume with there symbol on their chest but thats not what costumes are all about. Most of the time a costume in a film will refer to the clothing that a person wears which has to be thoroughly thought out to get the message across:

Casual clothing will give the viewer a sense that the character wearing this clothing is very normal and just laid back most of the time

Scruffy and Dirty clothing gives an impression to the viewer that they may be quite dumb and not well looked after, mostly associated with comedy films and disgusting personalities.

Neat clothing can often give a very uptight feel to a character, most of these characters are not well liked because they are often very rude, but it could also present an idea of cleanliness.

Tucked in wollen sweaters, big glasses, trousers pulled up and long socks is a geeky look, film makers usually use this costume when conveying a character that is quite needy and shy ad to make people fell sorry for them. That is considering they are not rude of course.

Villain Themes

 

.This is a scene from Batman Begins introducing the villain into the story. The Christopher Nolan Batman film's are a heavy influence on my idea for the story of my film so I think it is perfect to analyse the scenes, this is one of my favourite scenes from the film. From the viewing we can start to tell that the character Jonathan Crane is clearly unsettled by what the mobster is saying so they use the connotation of the "taking off glasses" to prepare us for the fact that he will do something bad. We then get an insight of how he picks off his victims, he makes them seem insane by using his gas to trigger screams

Skyfall trailer analysis

The trailer for the new James Bond film, Skyfall, shows many conventions of the action film genre, such as an excessive amount of guns and gunfire. There are multiple shots of the titular character being harmed, and is seen worse for wear, and is however managing to survive an extraordinary amount of wounds without being in serious danger.
The main villain is only seen at a glance, for example in shadows or through a glared window. This adds to the suspense as to whether this villain is one seen in other Bond films, or whether he is just a new character here to cripple Bond before he decides to take the fight back to him.
Multiple shots of women talking to him are seen several times, keeping with the almost self contained conventions of the genre of the franchise. This shows that the primary hero is considred a ladies man, and yet people still feel as if he one to be protected at all costs, even if it harms those that they love or themselves.

Age Ratings for Films

Age ratings can be an important implication as to whether a film is suitable for any audience.
This means that the film is suitable for all ages. This is usually used for children's films, or some less crude family comedies. Examples of films with U ratings include many Disney films such as The Jungle Book and The Lady and the Tramp.

A PG rating usually refers to a film that is not suitable for the ages below 7. This may be due to some mild violence or very mild swearing. Films which have this rating include Star Wars Episode 2: The Attack of the Clones.


A twelve rating is given to films that include some action scenes involving blood, or some swearing, occasionally dropping the F bomb in a few films. Other reasons for this rating also include minor sexual innuendo.


15 rated film certificates are given out to a wide variety of films, for many reasons such as some horrors, action and comedies. These may contain gore, a lot of swearing or minor sexual encounters- e.g. partial nudity. Films with these rating include- Role models, or any number of horror movies. This is also the intended rating for our own project.

Location Ideas

Considering that most of the film locales are inside buildings as opposed to outside, there are not that many shots of areas I can show  at this moment in time. However there are several locations from films that I would like to base our ideas from.

Watchmen Trailer

This trailer shows that super heroes have a darker side to them, as shown by how violent and the trailer actually is. This is an aspect that we would like to transfer to our movie, as it will contain copious amounts of violence, but not as much blood, as to fit into the psychological aspect of our movie. Although this may change in time we will chose to keep the film fairly low key, due to the lack of fantastic set pieces seen here. Another obvious addition that we will chose not to integrate with our trailer is the fantastical costumes that all of these superheroes are wearing. Much like in the rebooted Batman series, we want the trailer to be grounded in reality more than most other superhero based films

Law abiding Citizen Trailer analysis.

The law abiding citizen trailer contains many cliches of its genre, including a copius amount of explosions, however, it is later shown that the titular character is not actually the protagonist the majority of the film, but the antagonist of it. There are many shot of him, mainly close ups, that show an almost sadistic joy at getting his revenge in such a way, all because of what the police had done, or rather, had failed to do.

Film Summary

Audience Profiling

This is the audince profile for Watchmen. AB is Upper class, C1 is middle to upper,C2 is lower to middle and DE is Lower/ working class.

Hancock Trailer

The film Hancock is about an unconventional superhero played by Will Smith. This trailer showcases just how unorthadox the superhero is with wanton acts of destruction. The intertitles at the beginning are set up dramatically, making the audience think that this will be just a regular superhero film. This is shown by the fact that the sky is the backdrop for the titles, and that the titles are big and bold. The dialougue that they selected for the trailer all indicate that this super hero is not very popular because of his behaviour such as being drunk all the time, and the wanton acts of destruction that he causes whilst saving the city.
This seems like the type of film to appeal to everyone from a very wide range, however the certificate of the film is 12 so any male or female over the age of 12 can watch it, further the age range in my opinion is 12 - 21.
 The trailer seems to be a linear narrative as it does not jump from one bit to another, it has a clear and noticeable chronological order making it easy to follow and not get confused with the plot without really giving too much away.

Western Trailer Conventions

In western film trailers, there are a few primary cliches. A standoff between sherrif and villain will occur, six bullets will be fired, even though revolvers can only fire 5 at a time. The setting with romantic, sweeping frontier landscapes or rugged rural terrain will be shown. The cowboy has a favored horse (or 'faithful steed') that he will be seen caring for at various points of the trailer. he also does a lot of riding on the aforementioned horse, no doubt to save someone tied up on train tracks in spagetti westerns. For example, Roy Rogers' Trigger, Gene Autry's Champion, William Boyd's (Hopalong Cassidy).  Westerns may extend back to the time of America's colonial period or forward to the mid-20th century, or as far geographically as Mexico. The lone, cynical cowboy who is trying to be honorable amidst a dishonorable environment. Usually he is lonely because he is a widower, or he was wronged.
A strong woman who is the voice of reason, (and probably the love interest) for the "hero."

Horror Trailer Conventions/ The Ring Task

The Ring is a prime example of how to use the horror conventions to make a successfully chilling trailer. One of the most obvious examples of the conventions being used is the creepy little girl as the antagonist. This is a trait that is shared with many other films such as The Omen and The Excorcist. For some reason children are scary and often look unkept if they are to star in a horror film. Phone calls illustrate that this is a film that follows the cliche's. Phone calls where bad news when the ominous "The call is coming from inside the house" was in When a Stranger Calls, and ever since a phone call can come from any source, no matter how unlikely it seems. A short trip to the local nuthouse seems to provide some insight as to what is happening, for asylums are full of victims of ghosts, ghouls and undead serial killers.

Fantasy/ Epic Conventions

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a classic fantasy epic that displays many conventions ascociated with the genre. Conventions such as a grand battle, which was preluded by several samll battles, the concept of "Sword and Sorcery", and a range of near human protagonists and antagonists. In fantasy films there will always be a dark menace that needs to be stopped less there be darkness ruling the world. At the films primary battle scene which is viewed in snippets in the trailer, the good guys will be losing the majority of the time, until the very last few moments when an unusual amount of reinforcements arrive extremely quickly. There will be characters so powerful they gain time to say a quote before cutting to several fast shots of the aforementioned battle.

Romantic Comedy Trailer Conventions

The conventions of Romantic comedy trailers are very numerous. This includes the light hearted music as verious people smile at each other or the camera, the comic relief will wisecrack at one point. There is usually an awkward stare followed by another smile. A doubting mother will moan, and a father will say "go for it" in hushed tones. The rom-com trailer is home to all these and more cliches than you can shake an emotionally detached stick at. Even the intertitles will have these cliches, as they appear on screen with the actors leaning on their arms and smiling once again.
The trailer above shows many conventions that are ascociated with the genre including the awkward encounter with an attractive girl (in this case penelope cruz). There is a light hearted tune in the course of the trailer, with many other funny encounters, including a confrontation with a romantic/ trust issue, what is usually found in such a situation, only to be interrupted by "the funny guy". There is high key lighting to represent the lightened mood in a comedy such as this.

I have been using the new premier elements 10 at school, with this it has become much easier to develop and change the future project as I see fit. Instructions are as follow...

1. When on Premier Elements 10 go to change settings.
2. PAL
3. HDV
4. HDV 720p 25
5. Save to My Videos
6. Get media from the Get Media option, choose destination
7. Save by sharing, computer, FLV web large PAL source (Flash 8 and Higher)

Remember to switch between time ine and sceneline for best results.

Action Adventure Trailer Conventions

The conventions of action trailers are very similar to the actual conventions of the film... obviously. There are always action scenes, whether they turn up in the form of a fist fight, explosions, or an all out gun fight. This leads to the audince wondering why are they fighting, whilst also being in awe of the fights that are taking place. This usually means that special effects are also a mainstay of the trailer as well as the film, which can be easily assumed.

The tranformers 3 trailer is an excellent example of displaying an unsually large amount of explosions and fight scenes for a two and a half minute trailer.

Another convention is that there must always be an easily identified hero in the trailer. This may take the role of a retired cop who has to recue his family, or any number of "The Chosen One" charcters from multiple film e.g. Ash Ketchum, Shia la Beuf's character or Harry Potter. And of course  for it to be an action film trailer there needs to be a villain in direct competition with said here, to follow the conventions of good verses evil, and the desiceve fight at the climax of the trailer/ film, e.g. Bane, Dr Elsa Shneider and Roy Batty. ( the latter two are from Indiana Jones and Blade runner respectively)
In The Expendables The group of mismatch old fogies team up to deal with a seemingly impossible mission, and all the odds stacked against them. This is also a convention in many other action films.

Dead Snow

This film poster is of the film Dead Snow, a horror film starring nazi zombies. As you can see the focus of the poster here is that of a decapitated nazi officer. This obviously shows that the film follows the splatter horror sterotypes, as well as following the zombie movie cliches. The chainsaw is a particularly good example of how a weapon can be cliche, as in many horror films, the chainsaw is the "ultimate zombie killing weapon". Other features of the poster include the other zombies that you can see in the background, suggesting that the film will be full of the horde, and things may go quickly out of hand. The poster is clearly trying to appeal to your typical zombie film officianado and horror fan, as well as trying to appeal to those people which also like horror comedies, as proven by the review at the top which states "there is a storm of scary fun to be had in this splatterfest" The poster also shows the location of the film, which coincides with the film title itself. It's clearly in a cold, snowy area, which is unusual for there to be a zombie film set there. n the background you can see a cabin. Another mainstaw of the film could be that this is where the survivers will spend most of their time in safety, before the obvious fnal fight at the end of the film. Therefore it follows many of the horror film conventions and cliche's, minus the setting.

Prometheus Trailer Analysis

The trailer for Prometheus follows many of the typical conventions that you may expect from the sci-fi genre, including an alien, futuristic technology and advanced space travel. The music used starts out as your typical piece of sci-fi music, very "epic" and full of drum beats, the music situations change when the trailer shows a collection of short takes, a shrill, sharp noise is heard during each of the short takes. This adds to the level of horror you would expect from a film franchise which involves the bursting of chests via highly evolved predators. The costume of the protagonists in the trailer is that of stereotypical science fiction space suits complete with head mounted flash-lights, as expected from such a dark setting. The setting of this is shown to be on a world very unlike Earth, which is where they were led from via advanced communications. (star maps) Judging by the trailer the movie appears to take place mainly underground, as suggested by the the darkness of the location, and the lack of life other than that of the protagonists. This may have been done in the trailer to allow the audience to know that if they see this movie, they will know the fear that an underground location such as this can represent. The overland shots show a large horseshoe shape exiting the ground. Just from the trailer, we cannot tell if it is a ship, or a piece of antique masonry. This again further entices the viewers to actually discover the nature of this by watching the film. Lastly, there are multiple hints at alien life forms in the trailer, and how they may play a vital point in then films plot-line. The alien seen most profusely is seen to be half covered, enticing the audience to view what the monster could potentially look like, and how physically shocking it may be.

Here is a link to my earlier blog http://itsjoshsilly.blogspot.co.uk/