Casting Shots

These are the two actors in our trailer that we decided to use to play the part of Noah and also of the killer. We chose them due to them being our relations and also they both have a bit of experience of acting.

Name: Harry Jackson

Character he is playing: Noah Bloom
Reason for casting: Harry is the perfect age for Noah as he is a 14 year old boy although he looks slightly older and he really enjoys acting and has past experience performing in school plays and having been to several auditions. We also knew he would act very professional and help us by following direction and doing what we asked. He didn't have to speak however we knew it was a good choice as he conveyed sadness very well. As well as this we knew he would be reliable and give up a whole day to go to London and film several shots with several outfit changes in the cold.

Name: Darryl Pitt

Character he is playing: The Killer in the flashback and also a figment of Noah's imagination
Reason for casting: Darryl has been in several independent short films over the years and also quite a few adverts including a rugby themed Powerade advert. After watching them we knew he would get into his character and also be very reliable and professional. He was willing to film in many different locations and for quite a long period of time. The character he was playing required him to look quite scary and he embraced the role and played it very well.

Filming Schedule

This is our filming schedule for both day that we plan to film at the various locations. It is incredibly important to make a filming schedule so that we can accurately organise and manage our time effectively. This will also be beneficial as we know when and how long we need to call our actors for.

We've included many additional shots that aren't featured on our storyboard. The reasoning behind this was because our trailer isn't in a chronological order, it's more fragmented. We added some filler shots for transitional purposes to help us out when editing just in case some our shots didn't turn out too well.

Storyboard - Animated

This is the animated version of our story board. In theory this could be the very first edit of our film. We've added the sound to it and some sound effects, enjoy!

Storyboard

This is our storyboard. It's always useful to have a storyboard to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding about the type of shots that you want to use, camera angles, camera movement  when filming on location. It also enables you to be organised and efficient with your time. This is a very rough draft of what we aim to include in our trailer. Some amendments will be made to get it closer to the vision in our heads that we both share.   

Shot Ideas

In order to put together a successful storyboard, we tested out some of the rough shot ideas that we had in our heads. This year it was a lot harder to know what shots we wanted and needed to do as our trailer will be not necessarily in chronological order like one of our influences that we looked at, 'SPIKE ISLAND'. We filmed some of them and then others we have just photographed due to the still nature of the shot. 

This is just a simple walking shot that we wanted to include to introduce the character or to display titles or just to put to a voiceover audio.

This is another simple walking shot. However, we like this one better this one better than the previous one as it allows the audience to concentrate more on the character as oppose to the surroundings. We intend to use this shot in our 2nd draft of our storyboard. 

This shot is different from the others as we used a downward angled pan. We felt this shot is possibly more interesting than the others as it changes the dynamic of the shot. We will be using this shot in out second draft of our storyboard.

The shot testing below was one of the most important as it could go either way. We used some willing volunteers to test it out.

Location Ideas

We've had a couple of ideas for the location of our film as we plan to show aspects from all different parts of the film which are all in different places around London.

One of our first ideas for a location that spured from our very initial idea was to film in the London Underground. Especially on the central line as most stations on the line possess the aesthetic qualities that we feel will represent Noah's feeling of isolation and loneliness the best. We did some research into   some of the stations on the central line in order to decide the best ones to film at.

When researching we came across the station Gants Hill. This station really appealed to us due to the unique design of the tube station. Gants Hill is quite an old underground station as it hasn't yet been renvated

Another station that we really want to use in our trailer is Mile End station. 

Mile End station in particular appealed to us as it has a cross platform interchange which will allow us to film from the other side of the platform. This is incredibly useful to us as we have had the idea to film an incoming train go past our protagonist and then to leave the station with him still standing in the same postition. Here is an example of the shot that we want to achieve:

Another Location idea that we had was to film in Southwark Park for the flashback scene. There is a heavily wooded area so that we can vaguely show the killing from Noah's point of view. The wooded area will also help us create the effect of a flashback as it will still be visable but we will also be able to conceal aspects of it as Noah's memory is fragmented.

Although we could possibly have an issue with the lighting as the forestation there is quite dense making it hard for any natural light to get through. To resolve this issue, we will have to find an area that is onlooking the forestation as if to create the effect of a densely wooded area.

We plan to use places like London Bridge underground tunnels and Bermonsey tube escalators for transitional shots as we really like the atmosphere and totally feel that it portrays the correct sense of loneliness.

Production Company Logo

Research:

Last year when making our production company logo we made it in the style of our opening sequence e.g. dark colours and the movement around it gave a hint towards the genre of our opening sequence which was a drama/thriller. However this year for our trailer we wanted our production company logo to be neutral and therefore adapted to any genre e.g. Universal Studios. We also wanted to have two production company logos so it would feel like a professional trailer and also, in comparison to our piece last year, seem like a film with a larger budget. 

Examples of neutral production company logos that can be adapted to any genre are:

• MIRAMAX FILMS
• 20th Century Fox
• Warner Bros
• Paramount
• Columbia

And in comparison to this many logos, particularly films that specialise in horror, give away the film genre straight away whether that is through the name e.g. Twisted Pictures or the colours or actual logo.

For our logo, we have again decided to keep it quite neutral. However, this year we wanted it to have a younger approach as oppose to vaguely aiming it at all ages in order to consign with our trailer idea.

We can up with some names that we could possibly use... IMPORT PICTURE OF THE NAME BRAINSTROM.

The names that we liked the best were GREEN BRICK PRODUCTIONS and ALUNA BLU STUDIOS. We have decided to do two production company logo as from our research on trailers we have found that most professional trailers include two or more logos.

For start off inspiration, we brain stormed what our protagonist's interests could be. We thought that photography was quite a suitable interest to aim at the particular age group as its currently very popular and therefore relatable to the target audience.

We directly looked into urban photography from London. The idea then came to us to take some photos of the capital ourselves. These were the result.

 A rusty drain cover with spray paint.

 A mossy train platform

 A southeastern train passing at high speed.

 A heap of grit by the River Thames.

 A corroded and rusted railing knob by the River Thames.

 A deteriorating wall.

 A pavement on Shad Thames.

A rusty door under a bridge.

Pavement gravel.

Our favourites were the railing knob and the pavement gravel (last picture). The more and more that we looked at the railing knob picture the more it started to look like the Universal Studios logo. So in order to avoid a copyright lawsuit, we thought it would be a good idea to edit the aesthetics in photoshop and completely reinvent the image. By chopping up the image into random pieces we now had a cool background pattern for one of the potential production company names that we had brainstormed earlier. 

However we decided we didn't like the colour too much as it was a bit too neutral and not exactly attracting the attention of the younger audience. In sight of this, we decided to tweak the colours to reflect a more youthful audience.

Due to the fact that we also liked the photo of the pavement gravel, we decided to lace the image on top and change the opacity so both textures could be seen.

This is our finished background image! The next thing to do was animate it. To do this we first used the animation application Motion. What we wanted to happen was sections of the image to enlarge and rotate slightly. However this proved quite difficult in Motion as we both aren't experts in the software. So in light of this we decided to import the image into Final Cut Pro and create and edit effects there.

We searched through the video effects on Final Cut Pro and found the 'BAD TV' effect. We had used this effect last year for our AS opening sequence and really liked it. What the effect did was move and distort the image just slightly to give it an edgy and imperfect feel. Although we thought that the effect on its own was just a bit bland so we layered another three effects including 'TEAL & ORANGE', 'DIRECTIONAL' and 'QUICK FLASH/SPIN'. 

The compilation of all these effects had given us the desired effect that we had pictured when attempting it in Motion. 

The 'QUICK FLASH/SPIN' and 'TEAL & ORANGE' effects gave the image more of a warmer aesthetic by tweaking colours and brightening and blurring parts of the image. 

Where the 'DIRECTIONAL' effect gave the image more dynamic and swifter movement. 

After adding all those effects we were then happy with the outcome and had achieved our finished idea. It was then time to add the name of our production company logo, Green Brick Productions. To achieve the best possible title effects we again attempted to use Motion. This time however it proved successful! We started of by creating a blank Final Cut title to allow for easy compatibility between the two programmes. We want the text to appear with a rectangle behind it to make sure that it stood out from the very busy background. We searched through the shapes that Motion provide and found 'Neon Rectangle' which was really cool as it wasn't defined by an outline and gave the effect of a neon tubular light beam. 

However, we didn't like the sample colour that it came in. So we changed the colour to a neon green to fit in with the name of the production company. 

Now that we had our shape sorted, we needed to add the text. We decided on 'OCR A Std' as it was quite a modern text that wasn't too busy to contrast with the very busy background. 

We then had to add animation to the text and rectangle to appear in time after the image had stopped flashing and moving so much so the audience can concentrate on the name of the production company name. We didn't really want a jazzy and overly busy text behaviour due to the background being so jumpy, so we decided on 'MATERIALISE IN'. 

We had then finished with our text. It was then time to import the title into our Final Cut Pro clip. We then just simply positioned it on the screen and also in terms of timings. We had then achieved our finished 'GREEN BRICK PRODUCTIONS' production company logo. 

The 'MATERIALIZE IN' effect in action. 

Here is our first finished Production company Logo.

Target Audience and Certification

When deciding on the target audience for our film we decided to ask different people about whether they would see the film and some adults whether they would let their child see it due to some of the themes we will be displaying. We asked them questions about what genre of film they like and also asked them if they had seen and consequently enjoyed films that influenced us and are slightly similar to ours. In addition to this we also decided to look at films that influenced us and see who the main audience for these films were when they were released.

We decided to make a questionnaire on survey monkey and send it to people we know of different genders and ages. Here are the results we have found:

Certification

When deciding on the certificate for our film we looked at some of the issues and themes in our trailer and decided to look at other films and TV programs featuring similar themes.

Themes in our film include:

• Loneliness and Isolation
• Murder
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Elective Mutism 

Several films and TV programs that we have found that feature similar themes are:

This is 'Touch' the Sky 1 TV show which features a little boy who has selective mutism and has chosen to never speak. The difference between this boy and the young by that will feature in our trailer is that the boy in ours has become a mute later in his life due to a traumatic event that he witnessed. The certification is a 12 due to other themes in the program.

This is the film 'The Art of Getting By' which features a young boy, who although finds a friend and falls in love, is very isolated and tends to wander alone much like the boy in our trailer. The certification is a PG-13 as it is mainly a coming of age drama merged with a romantic comedy.

This is the film 'Speak' based on the novel with the same name. The film's themes are very similar to ours as the girl in the film experiences a blurred trauma over the summer of a sexual assault and starts high school a selective mute. The certificate given to the film was a PG-13 as it doesn't contain too much violence or the use of expletives.

The film 'The Piano' was made in 1993 and is also about a woman who is a mute however not due to a traumatic experience. But as it contains themes of violence much the same as ours it was given the certificate R in America and a 15 in the UK.

In addition to our research of films we also looked at the BBFC website where they discuss classification of films and what each certificate entails.

As a result of the answers we got from our survey and the research we have done into certification we have decided that our film will be a 15 certificate and our target audience will be females and males from the age of 15 and over.