Publicity

We are going to use social media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, we are going to do this by using our profiles to show the posters to our friends and then through word of mouth we can hopefully get more people to see our poster and then be attracted to see the trailer, the film and so on. For Youtube we would advertise our film next to the video when the person watching has searched something that is related to our target audience for example rock music


We are also going to use our school and advertise the trailer, we are going to do this by putting up our poster around the school, also the school/college has a magazine we would then use our magazine front cover to advertise our film.

Font examples

What we filmed when

Props

In our film to make it as low budget to make and to make iteasy to do we used only a few props in our film. Props we used was:

-          Cameron’s school bag – when main protagonist receives the ransom in the alleyway

-          Buff – to hide one of the blockers face to keep him secretive and to create a sense of unease for the audience

-          Two phones – this is to stage the breakup of the couple

Editing

Music for trailer

For our trailer i want to include two types of music:
The first of which i want is a slow piano, then when the action starts i want a fast drum beat and some guitar so it will excited the audience.

Examples of these are the start of the song Bulletproof heart by My Chemical Romance, and for hte faster part a song called Warrior by DIsturbed

For copyright reasons I can not include on blog or in film so will be creating my own based on these as now inspiration

we are going to Sony Acid or if that fails or takes to long to create our own music we have a back of http://www.jamendo.com/en/ where you can download free music



filming and editing timetable

Availability

The times we were able to film people if any of the group were free

	Period 1	Period 2	Period 3	Period 4	Period 5
Monday			Seb / Emily / Phil	Liam / John / Samir	Liam / John / Samir
Tuesday	Seb / Emily	Seb / Emily	Liam / John / Samir	Seb / Cameron / Liam / Phil / Samir	Seb / Cameron / Emily / Liam / Phil / Samir
Wednesday	Cameron / Emily	Cameron / Emily / Phil	Seb / Cameron / John / Phil / Samir	Liam / Cameron / Phil / Samir	Liam / Cameron / Phil / Samir
Thursday	Cameron / John	Cameron / John / Samir	Liam / John	Seb / Emily / Phil	Seb / Emily / Phil
Friday	Liam / John	Liam / John	Seb / Cameron / Phil / Samir

Characters college timetables

filming introduction

We are now in the process of filming our film we are going to film it around school grounds to make the audience feel worried as they will feel that this could be possible around them and they won't know about it.

We are going to do the filming in the week as people have comittments, we are also going to fit the filming around lessons.

We are going to do this by collecting all of our characters time tables and use the free lessons they have.

Character profile - Casting: Blockers/antagonists

This is our female antagonist/under cover Emily:

We have subverted the stereotype as normal stereotypyes of females in films are normally that they are used as prizes for the main protagonist especially in thriller/action films. But instead in our film we have used the female as a prize but we have also used a twist as the female is always the antagonist and has power which isn't normally shown in films

this character is generally outgoing in the sense she'll try anything and do anything to be able to complete a task, she is also very quiet, shy, lacks in self confidence and likes to keep her problems to herself. She is seen as the dark horse in this film as nobody in the audience would guess she'd be behind it all.

The general connotations of this character are going to be one of hope as they will hope that the main protagonist saves her but at the end of the film they are going to feel shocked when they find out shes behind it all and then hatred for her
This is our first blocker:

It supports the stereotype of big strong looking blockers.The profile of this character isn't going to be shown much but he is cocky and arrogant. He will also be playing the role as Russian hit man.

The connotations of this character will be hate and fury to him, this will be because when he is on screen he will be doing things to go against the protagonist and when the audience have figured out that the whole film was a trap to cpature the protagonist they will also feel betrayed by the three blockers
This is our second blocker:

This supports stereotypes as the character is tall and mysterious looking epecially with the buff on, this then will draw the audience in as they won't truly know what he is going to do and his appearence presence will scare the audience

The profile of this character is that he is generally a quiete, shy person, but he is fearful as he has a meanacing look about him.

The connotations the audience will have about him will be one of fear, the audience won't like him but they'll think that he's not as bad as the other blocker, blocker 1 he is the most hated
This is our third blocker:

This character supports the stereotype for blockers in thriller/action films as he is tall and can look pretty scary when he is walking up e.g. in our film when he is walking up the alleyway

This character will have a dark personality, he will be feared, he acts mysteriously and he will be fairly cocky. This blocker is the leader of the three blockers The connotations the audience will have will be hate and fear
 
This is one of our main antagonist (but the audience won't know this form watching the trailer) John:

This character is a typical stereotypical main antagonist as he is; mysterious, the audience won't know much about him, he isn't shown until the end of the movie to know his role in the film and also he isn't very threatening looking this is because he'll have three bigger hit man, but he also looks like he would kill someone if need be. The audience won't really get to know this character that much but they will find out that he is mysterious, a bit weird with his methods of hunting people down, he's ruthless and persistent when hunting people down. The connotations of him will be confusion as he will present a lot of enigma codes and he's not going to be liked by the audience

Character profiles - casting: Protagonist

This is our main protagonist Phil

We have subverted the stereotype of our main character. The stereotype for a main protagonist in a thriller/action film is a big, Strong muscly guy who has been through bad times and generally has nothing to loose but the person who is taken from him. We have subverted this in our film as Phil isn't a strong muscly guy, we have chose him as he is just a average Joe this is so it would make the character more connectable with the audience.

Phil in this film will be called Eric, and is a generally a nice, easy going lad for currently attending college and is in his second year of it. He is also quite sporty and his life has been easy as he has had no problems with school or his personal life until now.

The connotations of this character is the feeling of sadness and hope towards him

This is our mentor:

This character goes against stereotypes and dominant ideologies, as normally in thriller/action films the foreign character is on the bad side for example the Russian hit man, but in our film the foreign character is the mentor and is on the side of the protagonist. This also goes against dominant ideologies.

The profile of this character is that he'll be a popular character and also that if he's there on the scene the audience will know that the main protagonist will be alright.

The connotations of this character will be happy to see him and they will be faithful to him as a character

Some location shots

I have taken a few pictures of location ideas

This location shots are going to make our film posess several components of a good thriller film, for example the use of isolation with the fields, darkeness, clastrophobia and heights this will make the film appealing to our target population

Storyboard

This is a rough draft of what our trialer is going to contain:

This storyboard is what we decided to do so this storyboard is no longer a draft but the final storyboard, we won't be truly going by it and we any alter it slightly if we as a group another way or another versoion would be better than this one.

Binary opposition

A binary opposition is a pair of opposites, thought by the structuralists (Levi Strauss) to powerfully form and organize human thought and culture.

Some are commonsense, such as raw vs cooked; however, much such opposition imply or are used in such a way that privileges one of the terms of the opposition, creating a hierarchy (in this case hierarchy is dominant ideology)

This can be seen in English with white and black, where black is used as a sign of darkness, danger, evil etc, and white as purity, goodness, and so on (Barthes-semiology (this then folds into the 3 interpretations of connotations, denotations and myths))

The table below shows dominant (patriotism) and binary opposition

 

in our film we are going to use dominant and opposition from the table above, we are using this as most people in our film are white but we are showing other ethnicity's and a female in power. The other ethnicity's are going to be good and bad to go against ideology as well as sticking to it as it states above black people are seen as dark and dangerous and in out film one is dangerous and will be wearing dark clothes and will show he has a dark personality, but our other character of different ethnicity will be the opposite.

A popular film that shows dominant ideology is Forrest Gump

 

Forrest Gump shows dominant ideology in a Hollwood film as he:

- Lives the American dream

- He is white

- He is Male

- Christian

- Thin

- Healthy

- He becomes rich (part of the American dream)

- The only bit of the dominant ideology not used and changed is the abled and logical part, but the majority of the the film shows the dominant ideology

This is important to our film as we are going to use as much dominant ideology as we can to make the film more appealing. But on the other hand with modern society we have thought that it would make it a fair representation of the new emergin dominant ideology.

Film pitch

Script

With our trailer being short we didn't want to have a lot of talking as it wouldn't drag the audience in also it might give away some of the story, this is the script we went with in the end:

Various shots of a bribe, Phil's girlfriend Emily, Phil and the three blockers
Narrative - Is it about the money?
More various shots of Emily and Phil together
Narrative - It is about the girl?
Shot of Emily in a room on her own
Emily - I'm breaking up with you
Phil - reaction shot
Someone jumps out to take Emily
Emily - (Scream)
Phil running
Narrative - Or is it something else?
More shots of Phil and the three blockers
shots of Samir and Phil on a high bridge
Samir - Take the deal

The Synopsis of our film is that Phil is a regular guy goes to college, works ect, but then Emily his girlfriend disappears for a few days. After these few days she rings him up and tells him that she's leaving him. Phil is confused on why so goes to find her, after visiting her house, her college and speaking to her friends he finds that she hasn't been seen for a while. He then gets blocked by these three 'random' people and he is offered a bribe to keep his nose out of what happened to his girlfriend. Phil contemplates the his decision and finally is pushed by Samir the mentor to take the deal or do somehting about what happened to his girlfriend. Phil then goes to find what happened to Emily to only find out that she is part of a secret organisation that kidnaps children and make their parents pay ransom, and also other illegal activities such as murder.

representation

has been defined as:

shared characteristics of stereotypes

* Involve a categorising and an evaluation of the group being stereotyped

* The evaluation is more often a negative one

* The stereotyped group often has little means of having say in it's representation

* Stereotypes change over time

a quote from Stuart Hall 1986 has defined representation "the power to represent the world in certain ways. And because there are so many different and conflicting ways in which meaning about the world can be constructed, it matters profoundly what and who gets left out, and how things, people, events and relationships are represented."

Another way Stuart Hall has showed representation in this video clip form youtube:

Richard Dyer (1993) argues that representation is a political tool: "Social groups are treated in cultural representation is part and parcel of how they are treated in life, that poverty, harassment, self-hate and discrimination (in housing, jobs, educational oppurtunity and so on) and shored up and instituted by representation"

Dyer also higlights the complications in theories which focus on the negative representations of class, race and sexuality:

* Are negative representations responsible for the prejudicial treatment of a particular group?

* Does representation directly affect behaviour?

* Can negative representations be challenged by positive ones, and change people's attitudes and behaviour?

* Who defines what a positive or negative representation is?

A good example of representation is Leni reifenstahl's triumph of the will

British ideology

Left divide

Right divide

Since the end of the Cold War many of Britain’s intellectuals have sought to carve out new ideologies based on transcending the left-right divide. The distinctions left and right are portrayed as dinosaur categories referring to a lost world of class struggle and elite driven neoliberalism, no longer with any purchase on understanding the contemporary world. In their own ways, Anthony Giddens, John Gray, George Monbiot, Frank Furedi, Nick Cohen and Phillip Blond, have all sought to promote alternative political positions. Coombs traces their shared obsession with exorcising Marx, and their avoidance of examining exploitation as the economic base of the left-right division manifested in the ideological superstructure. Taking each writer as a launch pad for an exploration of prevalent ideological themes, he pieces together the puzzle of today's distinctly British Ideology.

This is from the website http://royalholloway.academia.edu/NathanCoombs/Books/178564/The_British_Ideology

Ideology

Idoelogy is often referred to as an unconsious set of ideas, values and beliefs that a group society or an individual hold to be true or important, and provide a particular views of the world:

- The values and beliefs perputuated by the majority within a society may be described as dominant ideology this may involve: - Patriacy, Christian beliefs, Western democracy, Hetrosexuality and family (kept through media - daily mail)

- Within a society there might be different ideologies at play representing different sets of social interests this may involve: - Gay rights, racists (ethic minoritiesstill not represented)

- there are many institutions that message and values like media (bbc), police, schools, ect

 

Marxist ideology

 

 

Marx stated that "Dominant ideologies may be hidden in terms of the common sense view or naturlised.

The marxist approach: -

- Society based on conflict between proletariat (makers of product/workers/wage earners) and bourgeoisie (owners of factories/manufacterers)

- Conflict is surplus ratio(profit) extracts from proles by owners-max profit for minimum wages-morkers makes as much money as she/he can and also tries to pay as little as possible to ensure profit

- System naturalisies this selects some and crucially cinvinces you it's your fault it you're poor

- Marx said that "religion is the opiate of the people"

- System prepares you access of failure depending on class and access to areas of experience (public school/Private health care)

 

Antonio Gramsci

 

 

He argued that societies economic system could not be used alone to control every aspect of intellectual cultural and political life. He identified the role of cultural power in maintaining the status quo. Hegemony therefore is the "process by which dominant ideology was able to naturalise aspects of how society is organised and this was achieved through control of cultural practices"

Hegemony is also subject to renegotiation and redefinition and the consensus may be broken as the ideologies of competing and/or subordinate groups came into direct conflict with dominant ideologies

 

 

 

Patriotism is a key dominant ideology which is promoted through the media

 

Allhusser argued that ideology is a force in its own right. Class rule is substained by organised power, which operates in two ways at the same time. The military, police and legal syatem maintain state force by power. Education, religion, politics, society and the media maintain power at the ideological level, by reinforcing common sense assumptions, attitudes and expectations that are ideological in that they manufacture and maintain consent to the exsiting social order

Chomsky argues that the mass media can be used to divert people's attention from real issues such as poor living conditions. He maintains that most people prefer to escape into popular culture rather than watch hard-hitting documentaries

 

Institutional ideologies

 

There are other ideologies at work in a media text. Any media institution will have particular ideologies which affect the construction of its text. These may be explicit ideologies (e.g. a newspaper may have a particular political affiliation) or implicit ideologies (such as the visual representation of a heroine in a typical Hollywood film)

Hollywood Ideology i that there is always a happy ending and about the American dream. Examples of these are die hard and Of mice and men

Questionnaire

To find our target audience we will use a number of techniques and these will include videoing someone answering our questions or send out a questionnaire which posses these questions:

1- Do you like thriller?
2- Why do you think this?
3- What are your favourite thriller films?
4- What is your favourite style of thriller film?
5- What sort of music do you like?
6- What do you like to do in your spare time?
7- Age?
8- Gender
9- How often do you watch films?

Questionnaire results

Audience feeling moodboard

This is generally what an audience member feels when watching a thriller film, in our film we want to replicate this, this is because if the audience member feels this through a film they are more likely to enjoy the film, be drawn into the film and have feelings towards the characters which would then allow us to play with their emotions as the character goes through the adventure.

The parts of the film that i will want our audience to feel these emotions in our trailer will be: Nervous when the main protagonist enters the alleyway and receives the ransom, excited as the protagonist fights his way through the different blockers, happy when the protagonist and the prize/antagonist are together, sad when the audience sees him getting downed and when it seems he has given up hope. We know we might not be able to portray all of these in our trailer but we hope to gain most of the feelings from the audience to draw them in to see the film 

target audience mood board

Audience theory

There are many audience theories like:

- Hypodermic needle
- Two step flow
- Uses and gratification
- Reception theory

Hypodermic needle:

This theory suggests that a mass audience passively receives information without any attempt to challenge the data given to them via media text

Two step flow:

this suggests that information doesn't flow directly into the minds of its audience unfiltered, but it is filtered through "opinion leaders"who then communicate it through to a less active associates over whom they have an influence.

Uses and gratification:

This theory suggests that audiences don't passively accept media but they consume it for reasons like;

- Surveillance
- Correlation
- Entertainment
- Cultural transmission

Reception theory:

This theory suggests that people consume media down to their individual circumstances (age, gender, class, ethnicity).

Narrative structure and our own film

I have outlined two narrative theories; Propp and Todorov, we as a group are going to try and use these two theories in our trailer. We are going to show this by having the seven types of characters show in the Propp theory and we are also going to have a equilibrium, a distruption of the equilibirum but we are going to alter the end as we aren't going to have a happy ending as we are planning on making a British film instead of a Hollywood film and aren't necessarily having a happy ending for the main protagonist

Propp's narrative theory of Harry Potter

Narrative theory 2

The second theory was put forward by Todorov

Todorov narrative structure is: -

1. Equilibrium
2. Disruption
3. Recognition of the disruption
4. Attempt to repair the disruption
5. A return or restoration of new equilibrium

Both of these narrative theories are mainly focused at Hollywood films

Narrative

There are two narrative theories and these are Propp and Todorov:

Propp narrative structure is: -

1. Preparation: a community of family is in an ordered state of being
2. Complication: the villian harms a member of the hero's family, the hero plans action against the villian
3. Transference: the hero is given a magical gift, the hero arrives at the place he can fulfil his quest
4. Struggle: there is a struggle between the hero and the villian
5. Return: the hero escapes, a task is set for the hero, the hero accomplishes the task
6. Recognition: the hero is rewarded

In his theory Propp came up with 7 character types to fit into his theory these are: -

Hero: The central protagonist of the narrative who drives it forward
VIllian: Seeks riches, glory and or power, and seeks to stop the hero succeeding in the quest or mission
Helper: Accompanies the hero for some or most of the quest and can sometimes help
Mentor: Gives the hero important information or equipment to help him/her in the quest
Blocker: Tries to prevent the hero completing at least part of the quest
Prize: Acts as a reward for the hero succeeding
Dispatcher: Send the hero on his/her quest

We have used most of these charcter types in our trailer, and have conformed to the Propp's narrative structure. This is because this narrative type will make it easier for our target population to follow

Thirller codes and conventions

Codes and conventions of the genre thriller are:

- Claustrophobic places such as coffins, planes, boot of cars, prison cells, under water, ect:
- Dark lighting (noir)
- Chiaroscuro (light aginast dark) - creates a sense of illusion, nightmare
- Shadows
- Obstrusive editing and quick cuts
- Various camera angles
- Use of photographs
- Deceptive mind games
- Flashbacks

Thriller trailers usually involve:

- Suits
- Weapons
- Flash cars
- Woman in need
- Fight scene
- Explosions




these codes and conventions were found from these websites:

* http://amynolanmedia.blogspot.com/2008/10/codes-and-conventions-of-thriller-genre.html
* http://www.slideshare.net/CharlotteEmmaVicki/codes-and-conventions-of-thrillers

The primary elements of the thriller genre:

• The protagonist(s) faces death, either their own or somebody else's.
• The force(s) of antagonism must initially be cleverer and/or stronger than the protagonist's.
• The main storyline for the protagonist is either a quest or a character who cannot be put down.
• The main plotline focuses on a mystery that must be solved.
• The film's narrative construction is dominated by the protagonist's point of view.
• All action and characters must be credibly realistic/natural in their representation on screen.
• The two major themes that underpin the thriller genre are the desire for justice and the morality of individuals.
• One small, but significant, aspect of a thriller is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world.
• The protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) may battle, themselves and each other, not just on a physical level, but on a mental one as well.
• Either by accident or their own curiousness, characters are dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared to resolve

In our film we are going to try and use as many onf these conventions that we can so that our film will be popular amongst the mainstream thriller films.

History of trailers

A trailer is a promotion or commercial of a film. The first trailer the be shown was shown in the U.S theatre in 1913, when Nils Granlund, the advertising manager for the Marcus Lowe theatre chain, produced a short promotional film for the musical The Pleasure Seekers, opening at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. Lowe adopted the practice, which was reported in a wire service story carried by the Daily Star, describing it as "an entirely new and unique stunt", and that "moving pictures of the rehearsals and other incidents connected with the production will be sent out in advance of the show, to be presented to the Lowe’s picture houses and will take the place of much of the bill board advertising.
 

Pulp Fiction Trailers

This trailer uses the conventions of a thirller film:

- Fast paced music

- weapons

- Fight scene

- suits

- dark lighting

- mirrors

- Woman in need

- quick editing

- Claustrophobic places

Drive Trailer

This trailer uses the codes and convention of a thriller like:

- Flash cars

- dark lighting

- quick editing

- violence

- blood

- weapons

- bribe money

The Dark Knight Trailer

This trailer uses the codes and conventions of:

- fast paced music

- dark lighting

- hidden identities

- quick editing

- lots of close ups

- violence

- weapons

- Woman in need

- fast racing

- Fighting