Urban Locations (Location Scouting)

Urban Locations
For our trailer we are looking to film in two distinct environments, urban and country. For the urban environment we are looking for areas that present a 'gritty' and 'expansive' atmosphere.

Charing Cross Station - This location will be used as the starting point of our master tracking shot, following our lead protagonist from the train, through London, to the conclusive shot of our trailer. The pictures below show some of the areas we will walk through tracking our protagonist.

London Bridge / Westminster Bridge - We are still in discussion as to which bridge we will conclude the tracking shot and the trailer. London Bridge has a 'grand' appreance whereas Westminster bridge offers a more 'open' space.

London Bridge:

Westminster Bridge:

St James Park - This park will be used as a way of portraying how our lead protagonist is missing home and her family,a piece of counrty, tangled up in the urban enviroment of London.

London Underground - This environment is regularly seen with 'buskers', so it would be an effective way of depicting our protagonist becoming involved with this culture. 

4 More London / Tower Bridge - This spot by Tower Bridge is a where we would like to do our time lapse, we felt it offered a atmospheric view of London with tall modern buildings and tall cranes. 

Piccadilly Circus - This environment would be effective at showing the chaotic and busy environment our character has dived into. 

Time-Lapse research

This National Geographic Time-Lapse is a professional example of Time-Lapse photography.

The duration time of a Time-Lapse can vary from a few seconds to several months. 

For example, a time lapse could consists of a photograph every 30 seconds for an hour. The end result being something like this:

The time lapse will be a key feature to our Trailer. Its features fuelled the ideas of how we want to shoot our footage. Taking advantage of the compositions that can be diversified, enabling the artistic feel we want, in the streets of London.

Useful Guides: 

1. http://www.learntimelapse.com/time-lapse-photography-how-to-guide/
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPeEZn0_ezs

Certificate Ratings

The BBFC (British Board Of Education) are the people behind classifying the ratings of the films we watch. 

Every 4-5 years, the BBFC carries out a major public consultation exercise to find out what the public thinks about the age rating of films and videos before they are released and whether the BBFC’s classification standards meet public concerns.

The main issues that are addressed when allocating a film (for example) are :

• Discrimination - 
  Potentially offensive content, relating to such matters as race, gender, religion, disability or sexuality.
• Drugs - 
  No work taken as a whole may promote the misuse of drugs and any detailed portrayal of drug misuse likely to promote or glamorise the activity may be cut. 
• Horror - 
  The use of frightening elements which might scare or unsettle an audience is part of a long tradition of story telling and film making. 
• Language - 
  Many people are offended, some of them deeply, by bad language. This may include the use of expletives with a sexual, religious or racial association, offensive language about minority groups and commonly understood rude gestures. 
• Imitable behaviour - 
  Classification decisions will take into account any detailed portrayal of criminal and violent techniques, and any glamorisation of easily accessible weapons, such as knives.  
• Nudity - 
  Natural nudity with no sexual context is acceptable at all classification levels, but will not occur more than occasionally in the lowest category. 
• Theme - 
  Classification decisions will take into account the theme of a work, but will depend significantly on the treatment of that theme, and especially the sensitivity of its presentation. 
• Sex - 
  The portrayal of sexual activity can range from kissing and verbal references to ‘making love’, to detail of real sex. This is reflected in the classification system, in which progressively stronger portrayals are allowed as the categories rise. 
• Violence - 
  Violence has always been a feature of entertainment for children and adults. Classification decisions will take account of the degree and nature of any violence in a work. 

Props

Here is a list of the Props we are looking to use in our trailer

• Guitar (x2) - A guitar will be used for our main character, another will be needed for the shot in which a guitar is smashed apart. 

• Fake Cigarettes - This will allow us to effectively portray the 'negative' and 'rebellious' affect that the male antagonist has on our female protagonist. 

• Medication - We will use medication purchased from a pharmacist to create the illusion that our protagonists family member is ill

Look and Feel

Costume - Girl

The costume theme for the girl will be practical but fashionable. We will focus on using layering of her clothing to represent warmth and practicality of living in London in the cold months, which is when we will be shooting our trailer. 

This picture shows a girl wearing a shirt knitted jumper and coat, this look is something we will incorporate into the girls costume as it looks warm and could be bought for minimal money, as she will have minimal money in the plot of our trailer. Also it uses the layering of clothes whist looking fashionable.

Going with the theme of layering clothing we thought about sweatshirts, we found a sweatshirt with a lion on which we fell represents her strength and courage to move to London to look after her granddad. 

We want to represent her personality and situation in her clothing whilst making her clothes look natural and practical for her life and the environment she is in. 

Themes

Drugs. Prostitution.

Drugs are frequently used in films as themes and influences representing illegal actions which therefore relates to illegal people. drugs are a simple and relatively easy way to represent gang culture, or illegal actions as they are reality easy to fake, but they are hard to make look professional and realistic when in action. The way that they are handled and used can either be realistic and give a great feel and give the exact impression they are trying to create or they can look cheap and tacky and ruin the feel of the film.

The drugs most commonly shown in films are cocaine, heroin, LSD and cannabis.

Prostitution is a theme that can be portrayed in a trailer without showing graphic detail of prostitution. This has been shown in many ways in films.

Here are a few things I have noticed that have been shown in films to show struggles of prostitution.

- Girl on street corner.

- Girl being approached by man.

- Extravagant make up.

- Crying in toilets.

- Knocking on door of apartment, man answers.

- Wads of cash being handed between man and girl.

When done well and using reflecting effects and grading on the film the impression of prostitution can be given well, giving a story line that will bring sympathy from the audience.

Music Video inspiration

STREET SPIRIT (FADE OUT) - RADIOHEAD

The blend of two shots fading into each other is fitting to our trailer as we want to use the benefits of Black and White and close up shots to escalate the discomfort and vulnerability of our Busker. The fading in and out represents the indecisive and unsure elements of her life and the choices she has to make.

JONNY CASH - HURT

This extract demonstrates the sense of loneliness and vulnerability we want our girls Grandfather to have. The framing used is something similar to what we envisioned when we discussed a shot of the Grandfather in his house, in the country.

The dark silhouette styling of the shot is also useful in delivering these themes.

MOUNT KIMBIE - CARBONATED

This music videos style uses low lighting with blues tinges to it; this colour theme is something we like however we might de-saturate the colour down to increase its purpose and impact.

The first picture features a panning shot on London, with a wide angle to include more in the shot. The lights that shimmer of the river create a pleasing view. The wide angle also adds a sense of perspective into the shot - demonstrating an immense scope of London.

The second picture is a tracking shot, moving backwards with the subject, and bobbing up and down. This creates a drained, sloppy mood - which would reiterate our characters feelings that revolve around her story.

ED SHEERAN - THE A TEAM

The music video uses all black and white shots to create a more gritty vibe to the video, portraying homelessness and the struggles the girl in the video is facing.

The shots include use of time lapse photography, which is a great way of showing time moving around the girl, and how her world stands still, staying the same. 

in thew video they have added a level of prostitution, to show how she has to make money to fuel her addictions. This is a good way of bringing a hard hitting storyline into a short film, as the cinematography is easy to portray well, without it looking cheesy, such as with a theme like drugs. 

Mood Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-9X5jbTcKA 

Casting - Girl

The casting of the girl had to be quite specific. As we will be including busking in our movie we have to have someone that is a singer/guitarist so that they can play in the trailer for certain shots.

As well as this we wanted someone that was also good at acting to portray the character well and to give the emotion we want to create.






Therefore the specification we came up with for our actress was:
- Female
- Singer/ Guitarist
- Good at acting
- British
- Long hair
- Late teens/ early 20's

The actress we have chosen to use is a Singer/Songwriter, who has been acting in musicals all her life called Kyla Stroud.
She is 19 years old, from kent. She has lots of original music, that fits the mood of our film well, that we could possible use in our trailer.

She is a regular busker around brighton and does gigs all over kent and London so is a confident performer which makes her perfect for the role.

Split Screen Recearch

Traditionally split screen is the visible division, in half, of the screen showing two events or of simultaneous events. In more modern media this can been adapted to make an easy way of having a character appear in the same scene or shot more than once at the same time.

Split screen can be used in many ways. The two we are interested in are; the one shown in 500 days of summer, when there are two version of the same scene but with different things happening, e.g. shown here are expectations vs. reality. And having a character appearing twice in one shot, so using a locked off camera and shooting a scene on one side of the screen, and then another on the other side of the screen and editing the two together, and because the  camera never moved the split in the middle should be invisible.
 

Expectations vs. reality:

This is done by shooting two separate scenes, they can use different camera angles and shots and editing them together to show an obvious division to the audience. This can be used to create an alternative scenario, life, or parallel universe.

Double character:
 

This is a fairly simple way of creating the illusion that a character is in a scene twice at the same time. The camera never moves position, and the scene is shot twice, but the character can never cross the line of which the screen will be divided. Then during editing you put the two scenes side by side, cutting out the side on both scenes and replacing it with the other version. If the camera didn’t move the split should be invisible and the characters should give the impression of being in one scene at once.

 

 

Genre Study - Tyrannosaur (2011)

Tyrannosaur (2011) directed by Paddy Considine

This British Social Realism film follows In order to further understand our chosen genre, Social Realism, I felt it would be appropriate to watch films that are within the genre. I choose to look into the film Tyrannosaur, a film that follows a violent prone Joseph (Peter Mullan), and the events that lead him to change his ways. 

In this film, Paddy Considine creates a poignant story that revolves around two, initially, contrasting characters. It highlights a different perspective of how similar two peoples lives can be despite there class or background, and how they can come to support one another. 

(Joseph being threatening, This shows the violent qualities of a character who you eventually come to  sympathise with because of the ordeals he has been through)

(Hannah helps put a tie on Joseph, this is a very intimate moment between two characters who both share a tough life. It is also a very revealing moment for the audience as it shows a different side of Joseph)

(Joseph cries whilst Hannah prays for him, this is another moment that reveals to the audience and what Hannah also believes, that Joseph is a 'nice human being' despite his belief that he is not.)

How could this influence our Trailer?

The compelling story of the two characters, particularly Hannah, is a element we want to achieve in our trailers narrative. Hannah, a female protagonist, is a subject to sexual oppression in this narrative, an element that we are looking to incorporate into our trailer. 

Scene By Scene

This is a early draft of how are trailer will come together, it shows a timeline that demonstrates our desired structure. We want to use a slow motion master/tracking shot of our female protagonist walking through London, this will act as the main frame of the trailer. Then we want to incorporate scenes that cut in this M/T shot that portray the themes of the story, eventually building up towards a climax.

Voice-Over Research

A voice-over is a piece of narration in film which is non-diegetic and not part of the narrative

Voice-overs are very common in film trailers and can be used in a variety of different ways. The voice-over can be the focus of the trailer or just be in it for a small part of the trailer and it can be spoken by a character from the film, or be spoken by a voice actor.

 

Voice-overs help to get the genre and the narrative of the film across to the audience in a film trailer.

 

  Don LaFontaine was a very famous American voice actor and recorded voice-overs for over 5,000 film trailers. Some of his nick names included: Thunder Throat, The Voice of God and The King of Movie Trailers.

This video shows examples of Don LaFontaine's voice-overs for trailers, and specifically focuses on the phrase, 'In a world...' which is a phrase we was famous for saying in trailers.

 

The social network is an example of where the trailer is made up of dialogue from the film spoken by the main characters.

 

When recording our voice-over we need to make sure that we take the correct steps to ensure we get the best sound. Here is a video exploring different tips to achieve a good quality voice-over.

 

 

Country Locations (Location Scouting)

Country Locations
For our trailer we are looking to film in two distinct environments, urban and country. For the country environments we are looking for places that express 'isolation' and 'escape'

Bidborough Ridge