Film Teaser Trailer Ideas

7th March 2011:

Before starting our film trailer we had brainstormed ideas immediately after creating our opening scene in AS level.

Production: Location

During the February half term we were lucky enough to go on a school trip to New York City. While there we were adamant that we would get a shot of the Statute of liberty, the symbol of freedom, for our trailer to symbolise a gleam of redemption in John Walters life. Originally we were meant to get on a ferry and travel all the way to Ellis island, where the statue is, that way we could have had very dynamic shots of our actor up close and personal with the statue. but we missed our ferry by a matter of minutes. So instead we went on the Staten Island ferry which took us all the way around Ellis island. This actually worked to our advantage because instead of just fitting a small section of the statue into the frame I was able to get the statue from head to toe making it instantly recognisable to the audience. In hindsight I much prefer the shot we have now because it allows the beauty and scale of the statue to be viewed all at once which leaves a greater impact on the audience as they acknowledge the symbolic message of hope.

Production: Glass Table Shot

One of the shots filmed for our trailer was a panning shot of the character John Walters drinking a glass of whiskey through a glass table. We achieved this shot by using a pane of glass, that i had previously purchased for a past production, as the glass table. We elevated the glass to an appropriate height to allow me, the cameraman, to slide comfortable underneath with enough room for movement and for my HD camera. Two Chairs and a stack of books were used to set up the pane of glass this allowed the 'glass table' to be very easy to set up and clear away afterwards.

There was a carfeul amount of consideration that went into what props should be placed on the table and how they would be laid out. the props used were medicine bottle, fake tablets, a whiskey glass, apple juice, cigarettes, ashtray, US dollar and flour (cocaine). We chose these items because we intended to make the characters addiction and weakness known to the audience. This makes them feel sympathy towards John Walters as they see he is a damaged individual who is poisoning his life and harming his chances of ever redeeming himself.

the original idea was to have the props spread right across the table by due to the limited amount of space below the glass the only motion i was capable of was an up and down motion meaning we could achieve a pan shot if all the props were placed closer together.

I used the focus on my camera to slightly blur the props in the foreground this strengthend the image of John Walters drinking his whiskey in the background. We made this creative decision because by blurring the foreground we didn't allow the audience to dwell on all the sinful things John walters is doing in his life. Instead by strengthening the image of him in the background it reminded the audience that he is only human and that he makes mistakes.

The location for the shot was in my kitchen. We chose this location because there are fluorescent lights situated in the ceiling which lit the scene perfectly allowing all the prop details to be illuminated. it also gave us a lot of room to set up the glasss table without completely rearranging the room.

Feedback: Ancillary Task Poster

I have been working on our film's teaser poster and need feedback but mainly to try and decide what font would be best.
Here are some images below...

Post Production

This image was taken infront of a green screen, to make the editing process easier. I experimented with this picture, creating multiple examples of review ideas.

With this image I had the idea to manipulate the shadow and tone of the image. I converted the colour tone to sepia, portraying an 'old-fashioned' effect. Furthermore the sepia tone distorted the quality of the image, emphasising the old style effect I was trying to achieve.

The main issue with this image was the photo wasn't taken on a blank background. Therefore editing was difficult when selecting and manipulating the image. I had to black out the entire background and remaster the position of objects.

This was our final chosen image to use for our magazine front cover. We decided as a group this was the most effective and neat image for a magazine cover. I managed to manipulate this photo, by adjusting the brightness, contrast and tone of the image. Furthermore I added the title of the cover and placed it behind the character, similar to the 'Empire' magazine.

Ancillary: Images For Poster and Front Cover

This is the first time we have worked with a green screen in terms of taking pictures I am still yet to make any sort of film footage using one though I hope to do that in the future. As you can see from this pictures we got some large bright lights from the photography department in our school. I feel those lights improved the pictures also it helped that we were using a DSLR HD camera. When using this specialist camera we found looking back at the images that we were impressed with how clear and crisp the photos were.

The editing process becomes a lot easier when using a plain or green background because it is very simple now to cut objects and people out of the photo. Using the green screen is also fun because there are a lot of backgrounds, fonts, objects and colours you can use with the editing programme.

To Do List:

• Analysis of the teaser trailer differences between extended trailers and teasers
• Analysis of the film magazine front cover
• Analysis of the teaser poster
• All to be done in four weeks. 7^TH of October everything is done
• Film edited within next week

Locations

Over the past few lessons we as a group have gone location scouting in the Howard school to find suitable areas where we can film John Walters. Initially we looked at the boys hall wanting to test out the stage lights and see what kind of resolution we get on my HD camera. None of us new how to turn the lights on so we tried a few switches on the main board but nothing happened. Then about ten people from reception and the finance department came into the hall and informed us that we had switched off all their computers and phones. We quickly put all the switches back and all the power was restored. We then left and went to talk to some drama technicians who work the lights for school plays so that in the future we know how to work them.

Liam Fitzpatrick

Locations: 22nd June 2011

In today's lesson, we had a problem with location searching. one of our locations for our trailer was the mnain school hall, we wanted to specifically check out the lighting situation, as we wanted our lead actor Jimmy Gore to be on stage with us recordin him, we could not conjour up the reason why the lighting for the stage lights were not working. we then scraped our issues with filming, to go back to the clssroom and work on some titles, and look at various influential trailers.

Whilst Dave, Liam and myself worked on the titles, jimmy was looking at trailers, which we could take inspiration from, and upload onto our blog. we finally agreed on the titles, of our four horsemen product, as well as our other production company, harlequin. we also looked at the trailer for walk the line, as this was an influential film for our own idea.

Production: Filming on the 10th of June

Friday the 10th filming session: It was a one shot take, me and Liam had to make sure that we knew exactly what we was doing in terms of capturing the great footage we wanted. For example Liam the director came up with the idea of creating a routine which he would be able to follow with the camera easily and not miss anything essential. So we ran it through a few times and the end product was to:

• firstly throw a cigarette on the floor and stamp it out
• grab the TV and smash it on the floor
• rip a white board off the wall
• smash a guitar against the wall
• then the character falls to his knees and cries with a bottle of whiskey

Overall this scene went very well to film i just had to listen to my director at all times and pay close attention to his instructions.

Locations: For the John Walters breakdown scene

Locations: Preparation

Production: Wednesday 8th June 2011

Today as a group we went to one of the locations for our teaser trailer for John walters. The location was an abandoned classroom situated in the music block. The room was an utter mess with dirt and crisp packets covering the floor and graffiti all over the walls, luckily we were able accquire a large tub of white paint so that we could cover all the unnecessary blemishes that littered the walls. We also found a dustbag and two brooms so by working as a group we quickly tieded up the room until finally it was clean and in a presentable state so that we could start putting in all the furbtiture needed to complete the mise-en-scene for our trailer.

We then brought in several objects so that Jimmy, who is playing John walters, had something to interact with during the scene. To make the set seem like a dressing room we added in a table and chair to show that it is supposed to be a place for John walters to relax before and after a show. We also found an old television set that would later be smashed in a fit of rage, along with an old writing board that was left in the room. We also discussed what other props we needed to complete the mis-en-scene and they were a cigarete, an ash tray, a mirror, a whiskey bottle and a photograph which infuriates John and sets him on his destructiove war path.

After much discussion we locked the room so that no one else could enter and possible wreck what we had all worked very hard on. We then agreed to come back at a later date and film the scene that we needed for the trailer.

Post Production: Pitch script

The Resurrection of John Walters- teaser trailer

Texas- 1992- The legendary country western singer John Walters has peaked in his career many years before hand and is now in a vicious drug and alcohol abuse cycle. Believing that he is a no good waste of space he sets out down the path of self destruction ignoring the people that care for his well being like his manager Stanley Forrest and his on/off lover Shelia Du Bois. John lives his life as a loner struggling with personal demons as each and every day for him is a constant battle as he needs to feed his consuming addictions.
John cruises through his life giving mediocre performances, fighting in bars and destroying his guitar until he finally lands himself in hospital where he is told that if he continues with his sinful lifestyle he will die. John then sets out to change his lifestyle but with all the temptations that are thrown at him changing his chaotic lifestyle is proving more difficult than first thought.

Genre: western/musical drama

Form: Teaser trailer

Influences: Elvis (1979), Walk the line (2004), Crazy Heart (2009)

Audience: The target audience for our film is people aged 15 years and over even though the film will contain drugs and some violence it isn’t specifically aimed at male audience so we have balanced the film out exploring John Walters relationship with Shelia Du Bois which may appeal to the female side of the audience. Also anyone that is interested in country western music will mostly likely want to see this film because it appeals to their music taste.

Tuesday 7th June 2011

Tuesday we had to place our pitch that we presented, onto the blog. I edited the pitch and cut off a part at the end of the clip that we didn't need. Also I added titles and transitions to title the pitch. Furthermore I changed the background of the blog, placing an image of our character 'John Walters' as the background.

Planning: Character Types

I feel this is the look we need to capture in our trailer a man on the brink, a man that does just not care anymore. Music was once his life but now addiction has taken over. What better musical icon to base our main character on than the 'Man in Black' himself Johnny Cash.

Feedback: Pitch for John Walters Teaser

Post Production: Wednesday 25th May 2011

Today we changed our idea completely, realising that our initial idea clearly needed to plan and produce too much. As we only have a limited amount of time to produce a film, it seemed necessary to think of an easier option and one we can get straight into planning. So we decided on creating a teaser trailer for our AS Level film extract "The Resurrection of John Walters". Once decided, we composed a pitch for our trailer to show the class our intentions and to provide ourselves with feedback from other people. Furthermore we created a brief list of ideas towards creating the trailer, noting down potential scene ideas, editing techniques, locations and influences for making the film.

Post Production: Friday 20th May 2011

Firstly we looked at what a blog is and used for, giving examples of blogs. Today we composed a variety of ideas and conventions for a short film. We mainly focused on the subject of a military styled film.  We’re also preparing to create pitch for next week to show the class our primary film idea.