Planning: Outfit for one of my film posters

Whereas for all of my other ancillary products they just wore the same outfits as they wore in the film as they were just staged pictures from scenes of the film, in one of the film posters that features me, I have chosen an outfit carefully; I have done this because I got inspiration from looking at the 'Public Enemies' film poster and also, because in the teaser trailer you do not really see my character's outfit.

My film poster outfit

My film poster inspiration

In the 'Public Enemies' poster, Johnny Depp is wearing quite dull colours such as black and grey, therefore I have chosen dull colours like that as well, considering mine is a very close-up picture as well I have made sure to wear my hair down as it is quite dark anyway and creates a dark shadow round my face. Johnny Depp's outfit also fits the conventions of the time 'Public Enemies' is set in, and I have made sure that mine does as well by sticking to a fairly modern outfit as it is a modern film, but also an average outfit as I am playing an ordinary person of no high status.

Planning: Allocation of tasks

What have I got left to do:
Now, I have completed and posted all Research and Planning posts, I need to put a list together of all my actions to take place next, at the top of the list will be tasks that are most important and at the bottom will be tasks that can be left a little while before they need to be done;

• Finish editing my teaser trailer
• Take pictures for my ancillary products
• Edit my film poster and magazine cover (ancillary products)
• Focus group of me showing my second rough draft of my teaser trailer
• Change or re-film any criticism there was for my teaser trailer
• Present my ancillary products to a focus group
• Edit any criticism that the class have about these products
• Show my teaser trailer to my target audience and make changes on any criticism they have
• Show my ancillary products to the target audience, and again make any changes that they think I should
• Finally, upload both the final production of my teaser trailer and the final edits of my ancillary products
• (After performing each one of the tasks above, I will upload a blog post on them about how they went and what I did, and any feedback I got back from them).

The deadline I have set myself to have all of these tasks done by is Friday 13th February.

Planning: Dialogue, music, sound

Planning: Sound - diegetic and non-diegetic/synchronus

Planning: Different camera shots/types/angles that I could use

Planning: Inspiration for my ancillary products

IMG 2160[1] from Emily Smith on Vimeo.

Planning: Organisation of tools and resources

IMG 2157[1] from Emily Smith on Vimeo.

Planning: Surveys for my ancillary products

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Update
Once I handed out the survey above, I got feedback that some of the questions were difficult to answer because of the wording or the choices for answers. For example, in one of the questions I had asked two different questions and when the only answers were either 'Yes' or 'No' they didn't know what answer to put, also my target audience is too wide making some of the answers difficult to answer if they're about what's suitable for the target audience (I will also need to go back to my target audience post and change this), finally for questions where there are multiple choice answers other than 'Yes' or 'No' they needed to know how many answers they could choose.
So, below I have changed my questionnaire so it is better, clearer and easier to understand, and I will hand these ones out to the class again to get some better responses.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Update
Here are the responses I got from my new survey.

1. Majority was 'Yes' for this question.
2. Because of the answer for the first question, and because that's the answer that I am going to go with, there is no need for question 2 anymore.
3. Just the hero's.
4. No need for question for 4.
5. No need for question 5.
6. Yes.
7. Other.
8. Empire magazine.
9. Bus stop, billboards and inside the cinema.
10. No need for question 10.

Planning: Cinematography

Planning: Time management for production

Here, is my time management list for production:

• As I have arranged a date to film - Saturday 20th December - that is when I will film all my scenes for my teaser trailer.
• During this I will take pictures of me filming the action.
• While I am editing the teaser trailer at school, I will be taking the pictures for my two ancillary products at home - after I have chosen inspiration ideas for my magazine covers and film posters - for Alex I will take the pictures on Wednesday 21st January, and then the pictures of Carl and the two of them together on Friday 23rd January.
• I hope to then get a focus group to look at my teaser trailer on Tuesday 27th January.
• Then, add/improve my teaser trailer on all the feedback that I get from that focus group.
• After this, I will be most likely to move onto choosing the pictures I like best and that fall into the conventions of my two ancillary products, and start to photo shop and edit those pictures to look the way I want them to.
• I would also like to have a focus group for my ancillary products after the first rough cut of editing them.
• Then I shall turn my attention to making the final touches to those ancillary products and finishing them off.
• Before, I present both my teaser trailer and ancillary products to my target audience and get feedback from them.
• Finally, if there were any changes that my target audience felt I needed to make then I will go about finding a way to make them.

Planning: Health & Safety evidence

Planning: Learning how to make my own music and trying it out to see what sounds best

Music is such an important convention to include in trailers, it builds the suspense and engages the audience, therefore it's a must have in my action/crime teaser trailer. However, I'm not the most musically inclined person and am not able to play any instruments, I also have no friends or family members that are able to play musical instruments, so this made my task a bit more difficult to complete. As we are not allowed to use any artists songs nor take them off of YouTube, I had to find away to create my own music but without using any instruments. Therefore, I wrote into the Google search engine "How to make my own music" and plenty of YouTube videos appeared and I chose the top one, which gave me a site called Soundation and from there you can add all different types of beats/basses/loops and create a tune that you're happy with, plus it's all free and because you have put it together yourself it is NOT copyright, the man even states this is the video.
Here, is the video tutorial I watched to be able to create my own music. (You'll have to excuse the end of the video where he just talks about subscribing to him and replying to people's messages, I'm not able to cut that out as it's a YouTube video and not my own, however I thought the rest of the video was very helpful and would be good to share.)



I am having trouble finding a way to convert my music piece into a video to be able to upload it to this blog post, I'm going to save it to a memory stick and then try converting it onto iMovie on the Mac and see if I can upload it to this blog post then.

Planning: Storyboard for my teaser trailer with further annotations

Storyboard from Emily Smith on Vimeo.

Slide 1: the close up of the father and mothers feet walking up the drive towards the front door in slow motion, in this shot the audience will hear the mother call out "Boys, we're home." There will be no reply to this, throughout this shot there will be no music nor sound which will help to build the suspense, I would like this shot to be filmed at night time.

Slide 2: a close up of the fathers finger switching on the light when they get in the house, it will be dark as it is nighttime and all the lights are off, however you will be able to see the fathers finger and the switch. It ill still be silent until you hear the flick of the switch and the explosion straight afterwards, after you hear the flick of the switch the screen will fade to white as the explosion noise goes off, this will represent the lights being switched on and also the disorientation/blindness from the gas explosion and blinding white light of death which will be the last thing the father and mother see.

Slide 3: now the white screen will fade into a shot of the two brothers faces (close-up) and they are at the cemetery where there parents have been buried, preferably I'd like this to be filmed in the morning and I'd like the sky to be dull grey but you can't predict what the weather will be like on the day of filming, this shot should only last two seconds and I want there to be a church bell chime on the 2nd second, this will amplify the emptiness that the brother's feel and their grief.
Slide 4: now we will go back to a long shot of the brothers still grieving at the cemetery, however in the background over their shoulders there is a mysterious woman standing under the trees watching them, as the camera cross zooms from the boys to the woman and focuses on her she turns away, and finally the last church bell chime is heard.
Slide 7: fast-paced, tense music kicks in now as the statement "SECRETS CAN RUIN LIVES" appears on the screen in bold, capital, white letters on a black background.
Slide 8: running and fighting scenes of the two brothers.
Slide 9: finally, the music now cuts off and it is back to being silent, there is one shot of the name of the film in white, bold, capital letters on a black background (I haven't decided on a name for the film yet but I will do later on and I will upload a post on choosing the name when I have done) and the next shot will be of the words "COMING SOON" in white, bold, capital letters on a black background.

Update
I have added some new shots and changed some of the shots to create more of an engima, and a variety of different shots, as well as explaining my story more; because originally I was struggling for audiences to have any assumption of what was going on which may have been slightly off-putting as they may think it would be too complicated to follow, (also because it had no sound this also didn't help to reveal the story) therefore these new ideas for shots should help fix this. Also I will not be having the church chimes in my teaser trailer anymore.
I have kept the shot of the brothers running but will be getting rid of the one of them fighting as when I tried filming it it looked too staged.
When I showed the filming of the teaser trailer I was told that it was unclear sometimes as to what was going on and who it was that had died. Therefore, I have added a shots of one of the brothers looking at photos of a baby that he does not know about and another shot of one of the brothers pointing a gun at the other saying that he "doesn't know who to trust anymore" and this helps relate the teaser trailer to the title of the film as well.

Update 2
Another comment I have been given is that it is unsure of who is walking towards the house and have died, therefore I have filmed another shot of the mother arguing with one of her sons, this also adds suspicion that it may be one of the boys who killed the parents, but just as the shot of the other brother who is pointing the gun also then adds suspicion that it may be him.

Planning: Character's

Planning: Survey and people deciding on a name for my teaser trailer

To come up with different choices of a name for my action/crime/drama teaser trailer I typed in two of the main words that revolve around the story of my teaser trailer into an online thesaurus, these words were "secrets" and "death".

These are the thesaurus words I chose from both of my two words, and here I have matched two words from each side up to come up with several different names:

As I was unable to choose a name for my teaser trailer from the four choices that I have, I decided to make a survey monkey which I could get other people to answer, supposedly some people from my target audience, and therefore I would feel the name chosen will fit my teaser trailer most and one that everyone will like and agree with. Here is the link to my survey monkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZ5CLBC

Create your free online 

I have posted the link to my survey monkey on network sites such as Twitter and Tumblr.

Here is the response table on my survey and the most popular name is Unknown Oblivion.

I shall be using this name as the title of my teaser trailer, I am happy with this primary research method because I feel it has gotten some of my target audience involved and therefore it should make my teaser trailer more popular with my target audience.

After much reflection and a discussion with Ms Humpleby, I have come to the conclusion that the name of my 'Unknown Oblivion' was not very convenient because the two names generally mean the same thing, therefore I have come to the decision to change the name of my teaser trailer to 'The Unknown' which suits my plot and also creates suspense which reflects my genre.

Planning: Focus group of me explaining my idea and how I will make it all come together

Here, is me presenting my idea to the class about my idea for my teaser trailer and my ancillary products, including how I want to film them, make them work and edit them. I used many different presentations that I had made to explain this, for example; I presented my initial pitch again, my drawn storyboard, the plot and location shots etc.
Majority of the feedback was positive, they especially liked the mystery that I have involved in my teaser trailer which helps with the conventions of  a Thriller, and the locations made it a more tense and gritty setting.
However, they were concerned about the choice of character's to play as they need to be convincing. But when I told them that I would be asking for my two older brothers to play then they were pleased because the relationship would be real between them plus they would both look alike which is needed when they are playing each other's brothers as well in character mode. Also, the brother connection and relationship will appear in the photos taken for the ancillary products which links all the products together really nicely.

Planning: Plot for my Action/Crime/Drama teaser trailer

1. Filming the father and mother's feet walking up the driveway - slowed down.
2. Shot of finger flicking on the light - fades to white as explosion noise goes off in the background.
3. Close up of two older brother's looking down at the mother and father's grave.
4. Shot of the mother and father's headstone.
5. Back to close up of the brother's faces and then a cross zoom to the woman standing under the tree in the background.
6 Screen fades to black and writing appears on the screen saying "Secrets can ruin people's lives."
7. Quick-paced shots of the two brother's running (filmed from behind) and of them fighting each other.
8. Shot of black background with the name of film on screen, the "coming soon" will be the last thing to appear on screen in the trailer.

Overall story: The parents are mysteriously murdered by a gas explosion in their home, the two brothers take it upon themselves to find out who done it, as they get deeper involved in the mystery they become suspicious of each other and turn against one another, until one of the brothers is kidnapped and the other goes looking for him, when he finds him he finds out he's been kidnapped by the same person who killed their parents which is their long lost sister, she was always upset that her parents gave her away when she was born because they were ashamed that they'd had her at such a young age out of wedlock, however they had written her down in their will to inherit some of their money, because of her anger she wanted revenge so she had decided to kill her parents but so it looked accidental and then she would get rid of the two brothers so that she was able to inherit everything, in the fight between the long lost sister and the two brothers one of the brother is killed, the other is forced to leave his dead brother behind to run to safety and call the police, the sister is arrested and given a life sentence in prison back to back for each one of her victims.

I learnt in the introduction task when I researched teaser trailers that they usually only last about 30 seconds maximum, therefore I have chosen some of the most significant scenes from the the overall story to include in the teaser trailer and the way I've planned for the plot of the teaser trailer is to entice the audience into the mystery leaving them with questions which they'll want answered, questions like; who's the girl under the tree? did she kill their parents? did one of the boys kill their parents? what's the secret? And the only way these questions can be answered is if they go to the cinema to watch the film.

Update
The parents are still mysteriously murdered, but it is a gun that has murdered them now in their home as this was easier to create, the two brothers still take it upon themselves to find out who has done it, and as they get into it deeper they do still become suspicious of one another. However, the brother is no longer kidnapped, but they do still find out they have a long lost sister and one of the brothers is murdered by her as well, and the ending will still be the same.

There is a change in shots that appear in the teaser trailer:
1. Is still the same as before.
2. Is also still the same.
3. Again, is the same.
4. This one did not happen, instead it went straight to the long shot of them panning of the two brothers looking down at the grave and follows the sister in the background.
5. Now, an over the shoulder shot of Carl looking at baby pictures.
6. Close up of one of the baby pictures.
7. Screen fades to black with the quote 'Secrets can ruin lives'.
8. Flashback of mother and father arguing - creates more suspense and suspicion.
9. Mystery long lost sister getting out of a car.
10. Tracking shot of the two brothers running down the road.
11. Over the shoulder shot of one brother pointing a gun at the other brother saying he doesn't know who to trust anymore.
12 & 13. Black screens of the name of film and coming soon.