Film Stages

The process that a film has to undertake is massive. The 3 main stages are summarized as production, distribution and exhibition below identifies the 3 main stages in more detail. All 3 factors are essential when making a film.

1.Production

·        Motivation

·        Stakeholders

·        Finance

·        Independent cinema

·        High Concept

Every stage is linked with the next stage. Although it is fundamental to help make the entire process of the film go forward, money will be needed and so stakeholders will have to be put in place for this to happen. To get stakeholders, various pitches will have to be arranged to companies explaining what the films about, characters, cast etc. It's also pitched to groups of the public, trying to determine that it will either;

1. Be successful.

2. Will it appeal to the approached target audience.

If a film doesn't appeal to the target audience the idea maybe changed or scrapped altogether.

2. Distribution

·        Unique selling points

·        Costs

·        Case studies

·        Trailer Conventions

·        Marketing Strategy

The next stage is distribution and this involves the whole marketing and advertising side of making a film. This very much links in with financial elements, this revolves around the advertising and marketing aspects which all influences how much money the project has. This will include trailers, posters and test screening all features included in making a successful film. Unique selling points are essential before preparing the marketing strategy as the unique selling points attract people to the film. This can also be evident through the cast which holds massive dividance to the success of the film. The cast are who will attract people to the film, and along with good plot selling points and a lot of money can result in financial success which will impact on a better film.

3. Exhibition

·        Cinema screens

·        Mode

·        Exit Polls

·        Audience figures

·        Audience Stratification

The exhibition stage focuses on the after math of the release of a film. The data collected focuses on a number of things including, how they heard about the film, the best of the part film, what attracted them to go see it. The questionnaire is pivotal for the producers of the film as they can see whether the film for the audience has been a success, if so could it become a sequel. 

Film Distributor - Paramount Pictures

When producing a film you have to have a film distributor that is going to be distributing your film, this is something that we had to consider when we were thinking of a film idea and who would be distributing it. There are many different film distributors and they all seem to distribute a different type of genre of film, so we had to find a distributor who would be typical to distribute a film such as ours, a thriller come action film. We decided upon Paramount Pictures.

We then had to think about how we were going to put this across in our film trailer and it was decided to have it at the start, like many film trailers, and for it to be silent with no sound effects just the music we are using for the trailer over the top.

This is the title sequence that we found and edited to be suitable for our film trailer: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qby22MVVrwg

Tagline for our Film Trailer

After browsing through many different film trailers that are of the same genre to the one that we are creating, we realised that we needed to think of a catchy tagline that would attract our audience to enhance their understanding of the film and make them want to see our film. Looking at film trailers of the same or similar genre, these film trailers were ones such as 'Taken', 'Stolen' and 'Don't Say A Word', these taglines were:

Taken - 'They took his daughter. He'll take their lives'

Stolen - '12 Hours. $10 Million. 1 Kidnapped Daughter.'

Don't Say A Word - 'You want what they want, don't you... I'll never tell... any of you.'

These are all of a similar theme to each other and gives a good idea of what to expect from an action/thriller film trailer and through this research into other taglines, our group started to brainstorm ideas and our best tagline that suits the genre of our film and ties in with the storyline of it was this -

"After a night that will never forget, comes a day that will never end..."



Final Filming Session

In this filming session we planned to film a scene at a party of the couple, Leo and Jody, having an argument which resulted in Jody leaving the party and going home, but we can to the decision that this would be too hard to create a scene in which we could do this so we tried thinking of something else. We then thought that the idea was a good one and if we weren't going to be able to create the original idea then we didn't want to put in something that wouldn't look amazing and potentially ruin the trailer, we decided against filming this scene altogether.

We did manage to film a scene that ties the whole film trailer together and this was filmed on a deserted road outside of our school. We were lucky in the fact that we filmed the scene on a day that was similar to that in Corfu Town so it looks like it is in the same place. It should help the trailer work in a better way and make the trailer more professional.

Final Filming Plan

In our final filming session we plan to finish off our filming so that we can put together all the clips and the music and everything and incorporate everything into making a top quality trailer. We still need to film a scene where the couple, Leo and Jody, we arguing at a party which results in Jodie leaving and walking home on her own. We also needed to film a scene that would make things within the trailer make more sense as this is some feedback we got and was said we needed to update, this scene needs to help tie everything together.

Film Industry Process

Below displays the process that a film goes through, it is broken down into nine parts. However it is evident that the process takes time and can cost a lot of money.

1)      Idea

2)      Development Finance

3)      Script Development

4)      Packaging Moment

5)      Financing

6)      Pre-Production

7)      The Shoot

8)      Post Production

9)      Finding a distributor

Second Filming Session

We have completed another filming session, this one being our second. In our second session we were able to complete our school scenes, these scenes were going to be able to help build the suspense and setting the scene while working alongside the other clips such as ones that were filmed by Will in Corfu Town. We were able to put into practice what we had learnt and used traditional as well as different camera angles to film scenes of Leo and Jodie being a happy couple and having fun, something that other trailers had done. We were also able to film a shot of Leo asking one of Jodie’s friends if she had seen Jody, this is going to be used to help build tension.

Props Used in Our Trailer

Props like most films play a major role in the success of the film. After researching the manipulation of props in similar film trailers to ours it was evident that the majority of props used occur in the form of weapons. Therefore, for our trailer we decided that Giannaz like most mafia men and are sex trafficking girls should have a gun. Furthermore, the schoolboy Matt should have nothing more than a kitchen knife. This makes the props used believable and reflects a real life situation.

The pillow case was also a major prop used. And one with a significance. When constructing our storyboard we discussed what props we could manipulate to make the scene when Jodie gets taken more dramatic therefore we began discussing ideas and eventually decided that a pillow case would be effective.

First Filming Session

Today was our first filming session that we had planned to do the majority of our filming in. We decided on travelling to an abandoned house in Crowborough which was about 25 minutes away as this was the ideal location for us to be filming and it suited exactly what we wanted to achieve in terms of locations within our film trailer. We took along our props that we had decided to use, a pillow case, a knife, and a toy gun (looks realistic), and we also took our video camera. All members of our group were present along with the other actors that were not in our group, Isabella and Renz.

Our first filming session was most probably going to be the one where the most filming was done as most of the shots used in our trailer would be from the abandoned house as this is going to cause the most excitement and that is something we are trying to get across in our trailer. During this filming session we were also about to capture some photographs of our characters in different settings that we could use for our film poster and/or our magazine front covers. These are below:

This was not our first set of filming that we had to use for our trailer though as when one of our group members, Will, went on holiday to Corfu Town, we had planned to get some shots of the landscape so that we could use these in the trailer to help set the scene.

Storyboard

After discussing our initial ideas we begun the process of constructing a storyboard for our film trailer. Before building a story board it was imperative that we looked at other film trailers to get an idea of the layout of a film trailer what to include and what to not include. After looking at the Taken film trailer and analysing it, I was able to help create the storyboard with my knowledge of how a trailer is generally put together, this is the storyboard that our group has come up with.

Preview Screen

We had to make a preview screen for our film trailer to ensure that we are doing everything possible to make our film trailer the most professional it can be. I have looked at some examples online and got a template of the green picture that is used, this is what we are using and it will be used before the trailer starts. 

Feedback on Blog

I wanted to get some feedback on my blog so far so that I could gain an understanding as to how my blog looks to other people and whether or not it all ties in together. I am going to do two of these peer feedback posts as I want to be able to compare the two and see how my blog has changed over time. I asked two people to give me feedback, Sadie and Will, their feedback will then be used to enhance my blog.

"Your blog looks like it is coming together Brandon and you seem to be doing a fair bit of both research and planning, this is good as without the research you wouldn't know what to plan. I would say to have a look at some of your posts and maybe add a bit more detail into them to give the audience of your blog a better understanding as to why you have carried out some of the research you have done." - Sadie

"From looking through the posts you have submitted so far you can see that you have been busy completing both research and planning blog posts. I think that you may want to have a look at adding in some more blog posts about your trailer and other things such as research and feedback so that you can build your blog up." - Will

I will look at both of these pieces of feedback and change my blog accordingly as the feedback is good and is only going to help me.

Chosen Actors/Actresses

We have now chosen the three actors/actresses to play our characters, here are photos of each of the characters.

Giannaz - Renz

Leo - Will

Jodie - Isabella

Casting

We had to think about who we were going to get to play the characters in our film trailer. We have three characters that we need to cast, although we have more characters within the trailer we do not need to cast these as they are not massively important in the success of the our trailer.

The three characters that we had to consider were Giannaz, Leo and Jody.

Character	Potential Actor/Actress	Chosen Actor/Actress	Reason
Giannaz	Renz, Jonny	Renz	Suits the character in a better way than Jonny did, more available for extra filming.
Leo	Will, Simon	Will	In our filming group so knows exactly what to do when filming, works more efficiently with the time we have.
Jody	Sadie, Isabella	Isabella	Fits the character perfectly, can work the character well and will have the right acting ability.

Character Breakdown

Identifying the characters is essential. As a group we wanted to get a feel for the characters. What they would be like in every day life. And what we could do to manipulate them to fit into our trailer. Therefore, it was vital that we incorporated mise en scene into our characters to make the trailer more believable  We used every technique and style that we could to make the characters better. Below is a breakdown of all the characters used in our trailer.

Monthly Diary - November

The past few weeks lessons has focused on planning for our main coursework trailer. What was involved was trying to create an idea and in turn think up the props, setting, location, story and the cast for this. We then had to establish this into a PowerPoint presentation which we then presented to the rest of the class and on camera. We used the class as a good use of audience feedback, helping get their ideas and thoughts on what could improve our trailer idea and whether it will be reasonable to make.

The response came back fairly positive, with a number of people excited by our idea and potential trailer. The negative feedback we got was mainly to do the subliminal extras we planned to put in. After analysing this, we took this feedback on board and hope to improve it for once the filming starts.

Plan for Titles Within Trailer

As we have started to put together our first draft of our film trailer we have to think about all the things that we are going to include within it, and one of these things are the titles, these titles can include the actual title of the film, the names of the actors and actresses, the tagline and a rating from a magazine. After looking into other film trailer we have decided to include these titles within our film trailer:

- 10 Missed Calls (Title of the film)

- Will Hicks (Actor’s name)

- Isabella (Actress’s name)

- After a night they will never forget… (1^st part of the tagline)

- comes a day that will never end… (2^nd part of the tagline)

- From the director of Taken (Advertisement)

As you can see we have played around with a few different fonts so that we can get a feel for what looks the best and what will suit our film trailer the most. It was a unanimous decision to go with the first font as this font looks the most professional and is working well with the action/thriller genre.

Locations Analysis

Before creating our film trailer we had many things that we had to consider to ensure that what we were creating was going to be suitable for the audience that we were targeting and that it was perfect for what we were trying to create.

As the film is going to be located in many different areas with many different settings we had to ensure that what we were going to film was creating the perfect experience for our audience. The film trailer that we are creating is along three different genres, action, thriller and romance, and so we had to ensure that we were portraying each of these genres the best we could and the locations that we were filming in would be able to help to do this.

This table is to show what sort of scene we would film, in what location we would film, and why we would film it in this location:

Scene	Location	Why?
Building Suspense	Corfu Town (when one member of the group goes on holiday)	This will give a mildly deserted area that is near the sea, setting suspense as would be hard to locate.
Setting Scene	School (during school, shots of couple being happy)	This will be before the main part of the film trailer, hence setting the scene, showing the happy couple.
Main Parts of Trailer	Abandoned House (this will be used for the isolation shots, will be put together so that the audience believes the abandoned house is set in Corfu Town)	This will be used for the main parts of the film trailer, it will be an ideal place to shoot some of our shots as it will give the perfect sense of isolation and dissertation that the main plot of the storyline is, it is essential that we get shots in this location.

Locations

We are planning on shooting some of our shots at our school, the types of shots that are going to be shot here are shots that are going to be setting the scene, these are going to be used all throughout the film but mainly towards the end as we are not planning on having our trailer in a linear format therefore the sequence will be broken up, hopefully causing more suspense.

We are also going to be filming other parts of our film at Sadie’s, one of our group members, house. This again is going to be used to set the scene as this is where the main section of the film is going to happen. This is something that will be very important as without shots in this location the film trailer will look very unprofessional.

The rest of the shots for our film trailer are going to be shot in an abandoned house, for this we are going to have to find an abandoned house in the local area that is suitable for our shots. We are going to be shooting many of the action shots in this area as this is going to be the best place for it as they make the best location with the most tension.

First Draft of Film Trailer Running

Scene1 - School Scene

Jodie and Matt are happily in a relationship

Holding hands scene

Staring into each other’s eyes

Walking with arm around her

Fun with his/her friends

Scene2 - At a party

Jodie and matt end in an argument over jealousy

Jodie storms out

Seen taken from her house

Scene 3 - Monday morning

Matt ringing someone then sees Jodie’s friends

Matt: do you know where Jodie is, she hasn’t answered my calls and I haven’t seen her!

Extra1: No one has heard from her, were really worried

Scene 4

Matt goes to Jodie’s house and finds a business card from Corfu

Scene5

Jodie seen shaking and hurt

Scene 6

Matt drives to airport

Seen going to buy ticket

Scene 7

Seen fighting for Jodie in abandoned warehouse

Final shot

Lifting up gun , goes black then gunshot, then scream

Idea - Film Trailer

This is an idea for our film trailer, it is only very breif as it was a brainstorming  activity.

•     Dad of 2 children is never at home, always working. Let’s his wife and cleaner take care of the children and the house.
•      Wife dies, dad turns into alcoholic and suffers from depression, loses his job, kids are taken by social services.
•    Dad tries to turn his life around, gets a new job and fights to get his kids back.

Monthly Diary - October

This month hasn't been the most productive month for me and my blog as we have mainly been focusing on other parts of our media A Level, mainly the theory side, this month. I have however been able to complete two blog posts, one on the potential names for our film trailer and the other was brainstorming more ideas for the title of our film trailer and making on a decision on this.

Title: Brainstorming Ideas

After rethinking the potential titles for our film trailer we started to think of longer titles that we could use rather than just the one worded title, while doing this we had to ensure that we were still making the title punchy and catchy as to ensure that our target audience would be enticed by the title and therefore remember the film. We started by looking at the previous ideas and the potential for them to be used in cooperation with other words. After looking into this further we came to the decision that that would just be too similar to our previous ideas that we didn't really like and therefore decided to think of something totally different. We then looked at the scenes that we wanted to include in our film trailer and getting ideas from that, we looked at the fact that a phone is going to be used for a call that will be missed and from this came up with a title of ’10 Missed Calls’, instantly we all thought this was a great name as it doesn't give too much away and ties in with the film brilliantly. This was our final decision that we have been rolling with and when it came to the filming we could focus some of the filming around this title that we had thought up. 

Potential Names for our Film Trailer

One of the main things that I had to think about when starting to make a film trailer is the name of it. We would have to make sure that we are choosing a suitable name that ties in with the genre of our film, action, while also not giving too much away and keeping the audience on edge, this would be done by having a short title so that it would be catchy and easy to remember for the audience that we are targeting.

These are a few ideas that we had for our title that would tie in with our movie idea:

•           Abductor – This would be focused around one of our main character.
•      Taking – This is the general theme of the trailer, too similar to an already established film
•      Trapped – This is another idea that would be similar to the name above
•      Hostage – This would be focused around another one of our main characters
•      Mistakes – This wouldn't be entirely focused around our trailer but could be tied in.

After looking at these names that could potentially be used for the title of our film we came to the conclusion to rethink about it and then potentially think of longer film names while still making it catchy. 

Monthly Diary - September

During the past few weeks the main focus has been on preparing for our new main project. I have been assigned researching into low and high budget films. Analysing the marketing of these films to get to grips with the film industry timetable. We have begun brain storming ideas for our film trailer. Thinking of props and settings to incorporate. We have begun constructing a PowerPoint presentation on ideas for our film trailer. After this was completed the rest of the class was used as a good source of audience feedback outlining areas which they liked and areas which needed to be changed.

Analysing Taken Trailer

The main influence that we had on making a decision on what genre of movie trailer was the film trailer for Taken. It is a great film trailer with a great story line to match, it works wonderfully in terms of a trailer in the fact that it gives enough of the story away to give the audience a good idea of the movie but doesn't give too much away so that it keeps the audience on edge and wanting to know more, this is something that we are going to want to replicate when it comes to producing our film trailer.

I am now going to analyse the trailer and come to terms with all the codes and conventions that are used within a thriller movie trailer in order for me to gain a good understanding when it comes to producing our thriller film trailer.

At the start of the trailer there is a shot of the film distributors that are distributing the film, this is standard of any movie and therefore is something that we are going to need in our trailer, this is something that we are going to have to think about when producing our trailer because we need to choose the right production company.

The opening scene that it shows within the trailer is a couple of shots of the family, these shots are put there to help set the story line of the film and then make the characters known to the audience, this is down with small conversation.

About half way through the trailer there is a shot of the main character, Liam Neeson, in this shot the character is talking into a phone and quoting the tagline of the film, this is a very important shot in the film as this is something that captures the audience, something that we are going to want to replicate.

Near the end of the trailer there are a series of action shots within the trailer, these have been put in to show a different side of the film – the main side. It works really well within the trailer as it is an upbeat part of the trailer capturing the audience’s attention.

These last two shots are the film title and then the information on the film, these have been used along with music for obvious reasons, to let the audience know the title and information, this is another thing that is typical of a film trailer and therefore we are going to use this in our trailer.