Finished Ancillary Task- Poster

I wanted the poster to have an 'eye-catching' effect, I feel that it does. The graffiti in the backround makes it streetwise and gangster. Like in the other posters they all have a tag line. 'Some dreams are worth the fight'(Fighting) and 'Win or lose... everyone has their fight' (Never Back Down. Ours is 'When you have nothing, what is there to lose?'. This leads the audience wanting more, this puts questions in their minds and influences them into going to watch the film. It is a bold statement and reflects the main characters views on life.

Finished Ancillary task- Magazine front cover

I was pleased how the image turned out. You can see clear connections with 'Empire' magazine, I tried to adapt it to look as real as possible.To do this we used similar layout, colour schemes, texts and even the price. We placed 'Mickey', the main character, on the front page to allow the public to familiarise and become associated to him. I felt the red brick backround of the image is particulary effective in the way that it portrays a rough warehouse feel.

Empire Magazine Research

We decided to look at some front covers of film magazine Empire. The film covers show us what sort of things we need to include on ours. They all feature one main image to catch the readers attention and blood red writing, which we can use on our film front cover. Sentences such as "Unbeatable Access" "World Exclusive" "Massive Preview Special" and "Incredible!, the worlds first fully 3D cover" convince people to buy the magazine as it persuades them they will be getting something special. All of the magazines feature a website address, date and price, which is something we can use to make our magazine front cover look authentic.

Official Questionnaire

1)How long would you suggest the most effective trailers are?

20 secs and below - 5
20-45 secs - 9
45-1.20mins - 9
1.20-2mins - 4
2mins+ - 3

2)How critical is a good and well suited song in concerns to the impact of a trailer?

Very important - 12
Important - 8
Quite - 6
Not at all - 4


3)What grabs your attention the most when watching a trailer?

Special effects - 9
Music - 10
The actors - 7
The acting - 4

4)How much should the trailer give away about the film?

The whole storyline - 0
A lot of the storyline - 3
Average amount of storyline - 5
Small amount of storyline with lots of action shots - 14
Very minimal amount of storyline with gripping shots - 8

5)What factors revealed in a trailer make you want to see the film the most?

Actors - 10
Action shots - 10
Narrative - 7
Special effects - 3


6)How important is it for you to see reviews incorporated into the trailer?

Very - 6
Averagely - 14
Not at all important - 10

7)Out of the following, what is the most likely to make you want to watch the film more?

Strong advertising campaign - 12
Friends opinions - 8
Reviews - 10

Ancillary Tasks

Alongside our trailer we had two other tasks to complete. They were to create a magazine front cover promoting our film and to make a poster advertising our film. After researching different posters and magazines we found that we needed to return to the shoot location and take some digital stills. Photography is one of my main hobbies and I also study it as one of my other A levels so I was happy to take this task under my wing. My camera is a Canon EOS 450d, when taking the pictures I tried to obtain good lighting and show strong emotions through the main character(Mickey Stanton-Louis Palmer). We dressed Louis in stereotypical street fighter clothes, black vest and dark jeans. This created a rough fight club look.

Once I felt I had a large amount of images to work with I uploaded them onto the computer and viewed them in Adobe Photoshop CS4. I found some pictures that I had taken in London of graffiti which related to the genre of the film. I experimented on layering the graffiti on the pictures of Louis, this worked very well. I also downloaded a brush for photoshop which allowed me to print more graffiti onto the image which gave it more of a rough street feel. I only used this technique for the poster because magazine front covers tend keep its simplicity and clarity so it is easier on the eyes. But with the poster I didn't mind it being slightly abstract because it reflects the views on the film, the film doesn't contain conventions of a American blockbuster. On the poster we found the right font in keeping to the street theme which we then made very bold with strong colours that stand out.This is meant to attract the public's eye.We found our font on www.dafont.com .For the magazine front cover we looked at 'Empire' magazine and based it around the layout that they set.
Here are a few examples of research that we based our pieces around:

The song

This was a hard task, after searching YouTube high and low we came across a song called 'Reach' by Skrein. As the audience research told us it was imperative to find a good song. After listening to it a few times it fit perfectly in what we are trying to achieve. The music genre is 'British grime/rap', in the American fighting films they have American gangster music and ours is British and has a catchy beat to it. We were looking for something with a heavy bass beat so we could syncronise the punching and editing to the it. Max contacted the artist through myspace and asked for permission to use his song, he accepted!

Here's the song and the offical video:

First stages of filming

With the pre-production tasks completed it was time to start filming. On a bitterly cold November night Alex and Max travelled to the shoot location. I was unable to get there due to travel issues. But I was informed what was occurring via mobile phones. They brought the High definition camera with the tripod and wheels for the 360 degree shot. Upon arrival they searched the premises in hope of finding shots that would be visually effective.
After about 15 minutes of filming I spoke to them and they were very confident on how the shots were turning out. Our main actor, Louis Palmer, was very fond of the opportunity of being able to show off his muscles!! He played the part perfectly and boxed the punchbag with strong intent and emotion. In filming, they made sure to pay attention to detail, for example, making sure the actor was damp to show how hard he is working and keeping the warehouse clean. They tried to get most of the shots done in one night but infact it is surprisingly time consuming so they didn't. However, it was back to the classroom so I could digitise and review the footage.

Synopsis

'CAGED’ is a thrilling and fast paced action film that tells the story of one misunderstood man and his survival journey through the ranks of society. Mickey Stanton was framed 3 years ago for stabbing a man. Upon his release, people want him dead. Mickey seeks help in the form of Paddy Stringer, an ex cage-fighter. Paddy trains Mickey to defend himself in a cruel world that is turning against him. Will Mickey be able to fight for his life or will he sink? Follow his break-neck journey which rapidly fills with fast cars, beautiful women and a rock and roll lifestyle.

'CAGED'

The film has been given a name! MaxAl all decided on 'CAGED', it's short and relevant to our film. It also has connections with prison lifestyle which relates to the film. It can also be seen as someones emotions being caged in, until they are released through fighting.
We have planned out the basic plot which will be revealed in the synopsis, but for now we have to research the type of genre which we will have to adapt our work too.
We looked at a number of YouTube clips but we felt these were most similar to what we will try to achieve.

Idea's and Audience

The process of thinking of ideas can often be a long and strenuous task. Although, after many brainstorms and research on YouTube, Max gave us hope! One of his friends is an ex cage fighter and has access to a small warehouse with fighting apparel/equipment. The idea was to base this opportunity around our teaser trailer. Typically, a teaser trailer needs to be exciting and gripping to grab the audiences attention. What better way of doing that by using a high paced fighting scene. In our minds we all had different camera angles which would lead to creating some interesting and unique shots.
Teaser trailers are usually very short in length (between 30–60 seconds)and usually contain dramatic footage from the film. The trailer will contain elements of fighting and betrayal so it will be shown on television, but after the watershed of 9PM. At this time only adults and teens will be watching and they are the segment of the public that we think will go and watch the film. Advertising can be very expensive so we need to make sure that where our trailer is shown is beneficial. The trailer that we will produce is going to be targeted at people who are a similar age to ourselves(16-25 years old). We know what an average 18 year old would want to see in a trailer. I did some informal research about the trailer and what people might like to see in it. I carried this out in my school common room at lunch. I discovered that most of the boys were more interested in the idea than the girls. This was an obvious discovery for me but nevertheless useful because we now knew to only advertise in men's magazines etc. From our questionnaire results, we uncovered that a trailer is the driving force in motivating people to watch a film. This encouraged us in making enticing trailer which would tease the audience into watching the film.
Now it was on to storyboarding, some more thinking and creating a synopsis. Also, the ever important film name!

MaxAl's Final Project

This year is our final year at school and thus the final year of media studies. Reflecting on my first continuity task and our AS level project, I feel that my skills have developed hugely. These range from using the high definition camera to learning the complicated ways of 'Final Cut Express'(a piece of software where editing takes place.)
My group consists of Alex Lay and Max Warby, we feel that we worked well last year and that the group dynamics are strong so there was no reason to alter our group. We all have our different roles, we know each others strengths and will use them to our advantage. When starting our A2 year, we were given the option of many different tasks. We all voted that we should pick the 'teaser trailer' task. I felt that this was a strong option because our style of filming and editing suits the task. If we had chosen the 'short radio play' option then we would have no idea where to start since none of us have any experience in writing one. But the teaser trailer is similar to what we produced last year. We could also use some audience research that we carried out last year if necessary. The groups feelings were that now we know how to use everything to our best ability after our introductory year, we should put it all into the best possible use that we know we can.