Synopsis response

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Synopsis

Film Synopsis

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Distributors

I looked at the website launchingfilms.com and found a list of distributors that I could use for my film, I have done some research into each one to see which would suit my film.

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Audience feedback to genre

I asked 20 girls and 20 boys what their favourite genre of film is. I wanted to do this to find the initial favourite genre of film that people my age like to watch and as I want my film to be targeted at around the same age as me I needed this market research to back up what I want to do.

I noticed that boys preferred action and horror and girls preferred thriller and horror which shows that I am working at the right kind of genre that both sexes will like. However I feel that my trailer will attract more female than male because the main character is a girl and it will show the girls side to things but I think that boys will enjoy the thriller aspect to it so it could attract both.

script

I dont want there to be much speaking in my trailer as I want people to physically see what happens and what could happen but I want to make sure that there are a couple of sentences in it.
These are all drafts and wont necessarily be in the trailer but it gives me an idea of what I could include,

"I've done no wrong".
"They deserved what they got".
"Nobody can understand".

I want these to be words that are softly spoken because she is a "loner" so they will be words that she will be speaking to herself and I think that they could work quite well because it makes people question if what she is doing is right.

I also want there to be some sort of saying that none of the characters will say it will just be ontop of the footage, here are a few possible
"An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind".
"As she has planted, so does she harvest; such is the field of karma."

A quick brainstorm into my trailer

Who is in a crisis- The murderer because she has a decision to choose.
Action scene- The murders themselves.
Scene- Along the seafront mainly (old town) and woods.
Interior locations of her house (everyday life).
Tracking shots on the beach and on the east and west hills.
Scenes to make people question- who is the real "bad" person?
Scenes concentrating on props- Her in her everyday life, possibly murders.
Scenes with music-location shots.
No voiceover.
Intertitles possibly could say:
"How can somebody be driven to kill".

narrative, research into Propp.

Propp used analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales

Propp had 31 elements to stories that he had identified, plus their symbol, interpretations and discussion.

I also looked into the characters that he resolved into 8 broad character types in the 100 tales he analysed:

1. The villain — struggles against the hero.

2. The dispatcher —character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.

3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.

4. The princess or prize — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.

5. Her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father cannot be clearly distinguished.

6 .The donors —prepare the hero or give the hero some magical object.

7. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.

8. False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess

I think that this concept is true within most films and is something I should take into account when creating a story for my film, obviously Propp used old folk tales as his inspiration but even now you can relate his work to many stories, books and films today.

Test shots

Here are some test shots that we did as a group, it was really helpful to do so that we know what kind of shots are achievable. As a first time using the camera I thought that it was quite successful and shows that we can progress to do better and more interesting shots.

production companies

As my film has influences from the film submarine, I have looked up what production companies they used, I wont necessarily use these companies for my own film but I am interested to see who they used, also because it was quite a small budgeted film it gives me some sort of

Film 4
Develops and co finances films in the UK




Red Hour Films


Is an American motion picture production company. Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfield run the actual company and the first film they produced was Zoolander (2001).

Warp films
Is an creative independent English company.
It was launched in 2001

Im going to look more into the films that they have produced to then decide on what companies suit my film.

Richard Ayoade

Here I am going to look at a variety of directors from the films that I have already researched in to, to see how they may have been influenced in their work and to see what problems they faced when creating their films.
-Ayoade adapted his film from a 2008 novel by Joe Dunthorne
-He is taking his film to the Sun Dance Festival.
-He has been compared to Wes Anderson
-Ayoade feels that his film is more in common with "Billy Liar" (1963) by John Schlesinger.
-Ayoade says that a lot of things in the film were influenced by himself,

Richard Ayoade (Submarine)

Submarine is the first of Ayoades films, he both wrote and directed the film, it took about a year of press work to promote his film.

He found the film shoot gruelling – "It's like trying to tell a joke by recording one word a day into a Dictaphone out of order and reassembling it and hoping the cadence of it works"
Ayoade found making the actual film quite gruelling itself, describing it like "trying to tell a joke by recording one word a day into a Dictaphone out of order and reassembling it and hoping the cadence of it works".

Some quotes from interviews,
“You have to be violent, I don’t know any actor that doesn’t respond to threats,” 
"I’m pretty involved with the technical aspects. I guess you don’t really end up subdividing it too much, as it really depends what the specific problem in front of you is, and different sequences have greater technical demands than others, and they’re all really interrelated. I’m not brilliant at categorising those things really … I know where the focus pull is, but I probably wouldn’t be able to work one of those electronic focus pull docks myself."

Films based on youth

This is the trailer for "Attack the block"

In this film youth is represented as "gang culture" nearly all of the characters have hoods and talk how gang members are normally associated with, however the film is a comedy/sci-fi which is an unusual mix to have with gang culture. In this film at the beginning youth is represented as reckless thugs, as they mug a harmless pedestrian walking home.
The film shows this gang as the source of all of the trouble as they were the ones that murdered the alien but it also shows them as the "heroes".
This film is also low budgeted but it still creates as much tension and drama as any blockbuster and also you want to watch on to see what the outcome really is.

Genre

The genre of my film will probably be a mixture of different things but the main one being thriller.
Aspects of thrillers which relate to my film;
-Thrillers have the aspects of uncertainty, anticipation and terror which I believe that my trailer will contain.
-Mainly take place in ordinary suburbs or cities. (my trailer will be based around Hastings and the sea.)


Thrillers keep people on edge and make people think about the whole situation, I want my trailer to make people think and it also needs to have a lot of tension, thrillers for me are also quite mysterious so I don't want to give anything away about what will happen. It won't be a typical thriller however, as I don't want it to be quite so gory, it will be more of a niche thriller but with aspects of "normal" thrillers.

Research into film festivals

This would be a festival that my film would probably belong to because they mainly focus on films that have been produced with a budget no higher than £100,000 that are unlikely to be distributed.

The winners for 2010 give me an idea of what types of films the festival actually show, for example;
Best film was "Being Sold" (Phil Hawkins).

My film is in no sense similar to this one but the way that they film and shoot would be very similar as it is low budget so the effects will be quite similar.

The best Sci fi/Horror film was "Zomblies" (David M Reynolds) which looks like a very graphic film compared to what I want my film to be, they use a lot of shots of woods and outdoor  space which is what I will be doing with my trailer.

I like this festival also for the fact that absolutely anyone can submit a film which opens it up for small budget films which "if" they do win will get a cash prize which can then mean that they can make more films at maybe more of a budget.

Photos of location

Mood Board

Film posters

I found these posters because in every one there is something that I like and could use for my work, I looked at a range of posters and I looked mainly at minimalistic and simple posters because I think that it would attract the audience that I am targeting which is more of a niche market.
I also found that with many of the horror posters that the main colour used was black or red which I will use as inspiration for my poster.






Submarine- I like this poster because of the brightness and it seems quite innocent as well, my poster will be influenced by this poster because of the burst of colour used.
I'm not there- I like this poster because of the silhouette and also the reflection off of the glasses which makes it seem more 3 dimensional,
Disturbia- I like this poster because of the use of the red and orange in the binoculars which is something that I might attempt for my poster by making just one part a colour.
Red Riding Hood- Again the focus of the poster is the use of the red which draws you in to the poster.
Let me in- This poster also uses red and I also like the angle that the camera is in, so for my poster I will trial with a mixture of angles to find an make a more interesting picture.
Wolfman- This poster is really effective because of the use of black and white, I like how you can only see one side of the face which makes the poster seem more sinister which is a technique that I will try out.
The next three days- I like this poster because of the picture that is put on top the the mans head which makes the poster seem dramatic.
13- I like the close up of the gun because it doesn't give anything away apart from the fact that there is probably violence involved, I also like how just an object is used which I could try for my poster.
Your world has been adjusted- I like this poster because of the writing which is really bold, for my poster I need to find a font and colour that I can use which will make my poster more effective like this poster.
Margin Call- This poster is really vibrant with just the colours blue and white, I like how simple but effective the poster is.
Super 8- This poster is really effective because of the effects that have been used on the scenery, my poster could be influenced by this because I could use a scenery shot instead of an object or person.

slideshow of submarine

Here is a slideshow of some stills from the film "Submarine", I chose some shots which I thought were interesting, shots that stood out to me and shots that I could probably use for my own trailer.
Also the writing that was used in the trailer I would probably use to influence my own work because I think that it is really vibrant and writing that really stood out for me.

This is the film Submarine, it is a film which I want to base mine on because I like the artistic angles that are used I also like the fact that it is quite an artistic film and the film itself is quite charming and shows that low budget films are just as interesting and exciting as blockbusters. The market for this film would probably be young adults which is the target market for my film, it is very niche and I also like the fact that the film uses a lot of scenery which I think I could be capable of achieving with my trailer.

I like the music choice because as the trailer is nearing the end it becomes much louder and dramatic, which is what I want to try and attempt with my trailer.

I also like the fact that there is so much dialogue because it gives you an idea of what the film is like but it doesn't give away what will actually happen in the film I prefer the idea of having a voice over rather than actual words running through the trailer because I think it makes the trailer much more personal.

I saw this film at the independent cinema "The Electric Palace" and by seeing the trailer and the film itself, it gave me many ideas which I would be able to use for my trailer, also a place like the electric palace would be somewhere where I would want my film to be shown, instead of somewhere much more mainstream like the Odeon or Cineworld.

This is the trailer for the film "Let the right one in" I think that it is a really effective trailer because it doesn't give too much away. I like the music that has been selected because it sounds quite dark and mysterious I also like the sudden burst of noise when Eli drops down from the building which makes you jump and then creates an atmosphere of panic and fear.
I particularly like the use of short clips because it gives the trailer more of an edge and by making the tempo of the music faster and faster it gives you the idea that the film is very dramatic.
There is also the disturbing noise of Eli drinking the persons blood which is heard very clearly in that part of the trailer which is effective because you get more of a clear picture of what the film is about and it then makes it pretty obvious that the film is about vampires
This trailer is also very effective because there isn't much narrative going on apart from a couple sentences which makes the trailer very dramatic because you don't know fully what is going on.
Overall if I was to watch the film judged on the trailer then I would definitely go and see it because the trailer makes it seem exciting and different to most horror films.

Year 13 Media

My first initial thought was to do something in Horror because I think that it would be quite an easy genre to do but I would want something that isn't too obvious and has much more of a story line with it and something that would make you think. 

I know that I would not be using the genre Sci-fi because I think that it would be too technically challenging to make, also the genre Comedy would be quite hard to hit a certain market of audience.

I'm looking forward to making the poster and the magazine front cover the most because I think that they would be the most creative.

I am also looking forward to making the trailer but I am slightly nervous about making one because I have never really done anything like it before.

Let the right one in

Let The Right One In

My initial thought of this film was that it didn't really give too much away at first and that it was quite slow. However I found that the film draws you in because the whole atmosphere is quite sinister and dark and you want to know what Eli is all about. The character Oskar is quite intriguing because he seems like an outcast and you cant quite work out the initial relationship between the two.  

I would say that the genre of this film is not just a vampire film but a sort of romantic tragedy, it isn't a stereotypical horror film because there is much more emotion to the film.

Overall I really liked this film because there is so much suspense and tension and it isn't made into the "typical" cliche way of making a horror film.

Released 26 October 2008

Run time 114

Budget 1,100,000

Revenue 10,785,801

Opening Weekend

$49,295 (USA) (26 October 2008) (4 Screens)
£224,154 (UK) (12 April 2009) (68 Screens)

The amount of screens in the UK from the US shows what type of audience this film relates to because America has more of a Hollywood blockbuster audience whereas I think that the UK has more of an alternative type of film audience.