Filming overview

30/11/11

We went to for our first shoot to various locations around London Bridge and Bank. We took the equipment necessary to film, 3 lights, 1 camera, a directional mic and appropriate tripods. We had our cast with us and took half an hour to prepare for the days shooting and in total took us 90 minutes to complete a large proportion of our filming. One of our locations is an abandoned car park located in bank, here the lighting was clear and strong and therefore translated well to our film and also as the place was away from the public we were allowed to have many different various shots. We managed to experiment with lighting and sound, the directional mic provided clear sound for speech and ambient noise such as footsteps. 

We attempted handheld camera work for a few scenes such as when the masked figures are chasing emma, this allowed us to capture the movement of the main character more effectively rather than having a static camera. In conclusion the filming day went successfully with little hinderence or faults with our equipment and allowed us to have a further understanding of the camera also and the use of light to create a different atmosphere for our filming. 

Poster Influence

The Machinist - Christian Bale
This film poster is very effective yet simple, the main central image is of Christian Bales's shockingly skinny character. You can immediately see from this poster the film is about the character of Bale and how he reacts to the outside environment. There is an transparent water mark of a window over the top of the image, this acts as if we are looking in at him yet he is looking out at us. Bale's seemingly empty yet personal stare grabs your attention as you glaze over the poster- it makes you want to know where he is and why he looks like he does. The colours are fairly drab with grey-blues and browns, the font used for Christian Bale is blood red and draws your eyes straight to the text because of the stand out colour. The font is larger for the title, 'The Machinist' which has a touch of colour that directly links to theme colour of the main photo.

The Box

This poster really inspires me to make a poster for my film using similar techniques. The colours are simple, black, white and red extremely emotive colours that show that the film has a serious aspect. The red that runs through the middle directly links all three characters together, and the red suggest there is some sort of danger surrounding them. The younger two characters have been edited so they are in sepia yet the older man in a hat is left in full colour, this makes the audience wonder about the role of this character and his link with this 'box'. The cast and bulletin have been centrally justified and this gives a postive symmetry that makes the text easy to read. The catch reads 'you are the experiment' this again makes the audience want to find out more about the narrative of the film.

Psycho -Hitchcock

You can clearly tell that this film poster is from a very different era to the other two, 1960's. It is very colourful, the colours are incredibly striking bold yellow for the main female character, light neon blue for the cast and a devilish red for the dangerous characters. The arrangement is very disjointed making you feel slightly un easy, it is done is artistic style like a collage. This gives a more aesthetically edgy vibe to the film, and makes the poster flow in less typical way to ensure that it stands out. Three exclamation marks are used to emphasize the 'screen excitement' to show that the film really provides a different and shocking experience- which is did and still does.

ConcreteGarden- Sound Track

ConcreteGarden- Sound Track

This is small soundtrack mix that we created to show what sounds we would like to have in our trailer. They are mostly eerie experimental soundtracks, one of key inpirations is Jon Hopkins who produced the 'Monsters' soundtrack. These tracks have ambient vocal that suggest some sort of confusing and mysterious environment. We aim to find or create more sounds like this that we could use in our trailer, we would not use a singular soundtrack as that isn't that common and doesn't show off our ability, we could use three different soundtracks for the three acts, all increasing in BPM.





Hopkins has been responsible for the production of many successful albums, 'Monsters' is a low budget british film that has incorporated a more diverse musical soundtrack we believe this creates more emotion whilst watching our film trailer.

In the 'Concrete Garden' trailer we are going to use sound effects many of these will be created my our selves and recorded on a micro-track, this is because many of the effects will tie in with the action on screen. We may edit our natural sound that we record on audacity or straight on final cut pro, this will help us to achieve the correct sound that we are looking for.

The masks- Photography and Lighting Practice

In order to have a idea of what the mask looks like photographed we carried out a series of test shots with different styles of lighting a poses. We used photoshop to manipulated the images.

The one is really strong and ominous, the knife looks really strong in the image, this image could possibly give too much of the film away on a poster .

This photo is really good the shadow is very sharp and strong on the white mask. The lighting is direct and this allows all the contours of the mask to be shown. The black clothing creates almost a foreground for the mask to rest on.

This was a very quick edit on Photoshop- We created a very rough poster in the style of halloween to see if it would work for our poster and I really think it does. The hand is skewed and bent which presents more ultra-violence.

The only full body shot used, this is good although shot in a garden- but it does take away the sort of alien presence that is delivered in a close up. The could work better for the magazine rather than the poster.

Movie Inspiration

Many films are based on true stories whilst researching cult activity we came across this story- This will help to strengthen the truth of our text and making it more believable to an audience.

Animated Storyboard with Sample soundtracks

Storyboard
First Hand Draw
Scanned
Make into a video clip
Youtube

Graphics and Themes

Filmed Recce with Voice Over

Main Location Shots
Light x 3
Camera Cannon Hd
Recce Voiced Billy Holmes Charlie Fairs

Shot List

Research and True inspiration

Two Women Charged in Satanic Sex Ritual Stabbing

A real life news report- something we may like to copy and use in our trailer to grab the audience to make it feel real. Realism is a common and effective postmodern technique.

Cult Logo's

We needed to create a logo and indentity for our religous based cult. I looked through many previous tribal logos and pagan logos to get an understanding. I drew these two logo's on Adobe Illustrator and we will need to recreate these on a page and on Marks hand for our trailer.

Locations

Location 1


This area is located in Stockwell and will be the area in which our main character will live. We decided to use this area as it shown to have a safe aesthetic to it therefore the contrast with later on in the film where the character is more vulnerable. The area is urban but not that urban due to a large amount of greenery located in the area, another contrast to the scenes that will be shown later on in the film which will be very urban and un-natural. This wealth suggest naivety in the girl main character therefore the audience will have higher sympathy for her if anything happened to her.

Location 2


This street is located in Pimlico and has the similar aesthetics to the first location. This is another possible located of where the girl could live as it still would show a large contrast to darker grittier scenes later on in the film. The use of white houses is a key aspect of deciding where to film due to the contrast between light and dark and an stereotypical audiences associate perception with them; light is good and dark is bad.




















Location 3


This area is located up town near St.Pauls, the narrow street gives the sense that you are enclosed and cannot escape from there, therefore for psychological thriller it would be good to use. This location also reminds me of the scene in Inception after the main character played by Leornado DiCaprio is being chased in a European city, within this scene he runs down an alley and the walls mysteriously become smaller and smaller towards the end making it harder and harder to escape, this can be interpreted as him trying to escape from his dream or perhaps his reality. The meaning in using this alley is the use of the spire of St.Pauls, as our film has a religious aspect to it, it would be interesting to know the reaction and interpretation of the audience to this shot.

Location 4



This area is located near Wandsworth / Clapham and is a restaurant. I like the aesthetics of this building due to its gothic appearance and architecture. A typical 'haunted' house if you will, this location may be used to pretend to be the college in which the main character goes to school and meets the antagonist for the first time. The use of this building in the trailer may already suggest a  horror film due to conventions in other films which use the same kind of overbearing bold buildings. Our filming schedule is also planned for winter months, therefore another aesthetic of this area is the environment surrounding the building. It is located in a green area and since it will be winter the trees and bushes will be bare, another convention of horror films as it suggests mortality

Location 5

This location is near Bank, in the City of London which is a disused car park which is available for us to film in. We aim to use a green filter/gel for this area as it gives a creepy and eerie tone to the shots used. The location will be the area where we film the cult scenes which shows the different members of the cult the antagonist is a member of, the location has many different styles of area which will be available to use, we aim to give the feel of the main character not being able to escape from this area and to have a contrast from her place where she lives which is outside, light and clean whilst this area is dark, grim and underground. The underground aspect could also be used to have a sub-context due to the religious aspect of the film, it could be shown to be hell because it is underground.

Location 6

This is an outside area outside lambeth college, this could be a good place for the meeting of the characters. It is a large open space that is illuminated at night, the high wall feature adds for an interesting back drop. There is a strange orange sculpture, this can actually be filmed through and this distorts images and acts a filter.

Location 7


This location is in Forest Hill, South London and would be a good Master Shot of London at the beginning of the trailer to establish were the film is set. The area is also very secluded and eerie and therefore would go with the tone of the film. From this point also there is a view of Saint Pauls cathedral and therefore it would be useful to have a shot of St.Pauls to hint at a religious aspect to the film and also would link in later on in the trailer when St Paul is used as a backdrop to one of the scenes shown in location 2. This shot would also show the difference between urban and rural and therefore a contrast alike to later on in the film where the safe urban area that the main character lives in changes to a darker setting, (compare location 1 to location 4)

Concrete Garden

Workings on Concrete Garden poster and image
Using Photo CS5- rough idea combining classical image with urban photograph

Constume Research

I visited a mask shop to do some research into what one we would like to use for our trailer. We particularly like the venetian masks so I decided to look into this area.

This one was our 2nd favourite it looks fairly strange and allows a good costume to be structured around it.

This is one is far too halloween like for us, a definate no.

Far too decrative.

This is a definate contender but in our research we found the venetian bauta mask used in 'eyes wide shut' I then proceeded to look online and order these masks.

The Plot- Concrete Garden

Concrete Garden

Our protagonist is aged between 18-21 years old, she has just moved to London to study. She is not overly confident whilst her body language depicts the complete opposite of her being an alfa-female character. Her name is Emma Jennings and she is very attractive but feels rather alone in her new environment, but naturally is very likable and intelligent. She starts College where she meets a range of new people all whom she feels will have very little significance in her life. She meets with a strange young man similarly aged to her named Mark Francis, he provokes mystery but also elements of perversion. Emma learns the ropes around London and soon becomes far more comfortable, as she settles into her new environment Mark hangs around her more, she shrugs it off at first until she notices him following her home.

We learn more about the background of Emma and learn to sympathise and relate with her as her character is fully established, further involvement of Mark and him beginning stalk her become more influential in the narrative. She starts to become panicked and feels vulnerable to him, he speaks to her in a strange poetic way, and this starts to have strange psychological effects on her which we see later on in the film. He talks of sex, revenge and religious events- her innocence is made clearer as we notice how she reacts in these dark and twisted situations. Mark starts to become actively involved in her life talking to her all the way home, waiting outside her doors etc. Stalker conventions. Mark begins to send Emma images of with religious, twisted, painful and sexually contexts which further caused her psychological harm.

She receives a video message with a masked man telling her that ‘she is needed and she will be eternally rewarded’. This masked character soon becomes an alter ego of Emma and follows her around she cant tell the difference between her mind and reality, but only the audience know this and Emma does not realise. The alter ego is reflection of her paranoia and fright due to the trauma of Mark Francis and this masked character continues to tell her similar things that Mark has told her on numerous occasions to show similarities between the two characters. People start to notice that she is slowly losing her grip on reality and therefore blurring the boundaries and becoming hyperreal, she starts to see Mark as this masked character on occasions he appears to be normal.

One day she feels ill blood drips from her mouth, a bodily change has occurred and she notices marks over her body, without any knowledge of how they appeared there. She tries to leave her house when she opens the door Mark Is there his face barely visible she screams and viscously claws him, he holds her down and tells her that the cult need her and she will be rewarded. Emma becomes frantic and completely insane. He notices her alter ego, and acknowledges the existence- he grabs the mouth of the alter ego and cuts to her in a strange unknown place. Her vision is impaired and she can her weird chanting. Emma greets her masked alter ego, at this stage she is incredibly disturbed and almost lifeless. She is greeted by a panel of similarly masked people, her alter ago goes over and meets them. She is apart of this strange cult, they call her ‘Eve’ and is offered red apples and she is harnessed down to stall. They carry out numerous practices; Mark heads the bizarre sexually provocative displays. Her alter ego tells her that its ok and she needs to let Lucifer take control of her- she continues to scream. The weird acts of sexual torture continue, the audience are made aware of the reality and seediness of the cult. The acts of violence become stronger and more intense from the other cult members, we see CU of Marks face as we see his expression turn to dismay and horror at the events that are taking place. The editing pace quickens until Mark shouts and decides to hold back the members of the cult, this is followed by a short quick fighting scene in which we see the violence turning towards Mark, meanwhile Emma still remains in panic. Fade out, POV / fly on the wall shot of the scenario to convey to the audience the full extent of what has happened, Mark is lying beaten on the ground but still alive as well as other members which are shown to be dead due to the escalation of the fight. Emma is also shown on the ground in panic and a zoom in CU to her face and then fade out. 


She wakes up in an unknown bedroom, she seems confused until she sees her alter ego's mask at the end of the bed. We see her walk away out of the room and away from the mask to signify him leaving her alter ego behind and also the cult. 

The Film Title

Concrete Garden

Our film title is Concrete Garden- we have checked to see if it has been used before and it hasn't.

The reason for this name relates heavily to the films themes, the concrete represents the urban landscape that it is set it. The garden represents the garden of Eden, which is based on the teaching and belief systems in the cult in our film. The idea that the story has been modernised and brought back to life through deranged people is shown in our film title. 

Props- Masks

This mask grabbed our attention right away, its mysterious and fairly frightening. This mask has been used in 'Eyes wide shut' another very popular thriller. This mask is quite hard to find in London and rather expensive so we will have to work hard to find them and get a good deal.

Venetian Bauta White Mask

Studio Production

From our film we want a combination of an american and english film studios and production companies- to provide our film with and anglo- american feel. We have decided this because we believe our film does not suit the British Independent Arthouse bracket. This is mainly due to the budgeting of these films such as 'Skeletons', 'Shifty' and 'Disappearance of alice creed' do not provide the aesthetics of what we want our film to look like.

With an anglo-american production there be a significant amount of money pumped into our project, this will give it a stylish and high class feel and look to our film. Our audience will be broader as we can have a small american marketing project along side a European release. This will help of Psychological thriller to be successful and to hopefully receive international acclaim. W want the high aesthetic nature that an anglo-american production provides an example of this is 'American Werewolf in London', a classic example of British and American

talent combining. The film used a half and half combination of studio's; Polygram, Hearst Entertainment and the Guber-Peters company. This film had a good budget and made a nice profit in the US and the UK.

An American Werewolf in London

Another film that we are influenced by in its production and distribution is 'Big Nothing', Simon Pegg and David Schimmer both directed this- a fantastic example of successful of an English and American collaboration. They produced a great comedy-thriller that got noticed all over Europe and America with the studio 'Pathe', as a result was incredibly popular and well received and both nations. Whilst being set in Oregan still had a british vibe, so this proves that a combination can still stay true to both English people and Americans.

Big Nothing Poster

20th Century Fox logo

A film that really inspires our film is '28 days later' a cult Thriller-Horror set in a dystopian England. The film is pretty much entirely British from the locations to actors, but the film couldn't have been made with out the input of an American distributor. 20th century fox combined with Fox searchlight pictures to create this outstanding film and the British film council and DNA joined studios. Thanks to the help of the collaboration '28 days later' managed to pick up 'Best Horror Film' in the US,UK and Europe- not to mention a vast array of other awards. This is what we hope our film to achieve if released. With the backing of anglo-american money, the film managed to pull off great effects, actor and locations we would want this to be true of our film as well. The film production crew then managed to make '28 weeks later' and even a possible '28 months later'.

DNA Studio logo

Trailer Structure

ACT 1

Shots of studio idents both english and american, winner of film festivals (Anglo-American)

Establishing/Master shot of main location which is London

Shot of main character in location

Introduction to main character by sound bites to confirm narrative

Antagonist introduced after main character to show importance in the film

Capture her isolation, lo-fi vibe

Slow paced editing to fit conventions of a standard film trailer

Use of fade in/out editing also

ACT 2

The problem introduced/ Good vs. Evil standard convention

Increase speed of editing between shots

Dialogue between antagonist and protagonist to help introduce problem to audience

Audience becomes more emotive towards protagonist

Mystery introduced, psychological element

Introduction of alter ego character, ends ACT 2 and increase editing to montage speed

ACT 3

Montage introduced

Action scenes used with fast paced editing to increase suspense and sell the film

Sound Effects used to increase action theme

Problem is intensified with the antagonist, more shots of both antagonist and protagonist to show conflict

Dramatic change of location to show the change of tone in the narrative of the fill

Finale Introduction more alter ego character, long end shot to show all alter ego characters to increase curiosity of the audience and make them want to see the film more

Title of film

Audience research graphs and analysis

What is your gender?

The large male dominant result shows that we should aim our trailer at a male audience. However, our results could be shown to biased as it can be shown that the psychological thriller sub-genre is shown to be unisex

What is your age?

The main target audience within the film industry is the 15-24 year old age group. Our results show a large dominant percentage our within this age range therefore we would want to aim our thriller to appeal to this particular audience. This audience age range is shown to be more active rather than passive which will mean our trailer would have to appeal in different forms of media

What particular genre would you be inclined to see?

The thriller and horror genre both were shown to be reasonably popular within the survey so this is a positive result. The high comedy result maybe due to it having a tension release audience, which means they would view a particular film (comedy) for tension release.

Do you purposefully watch film trailers?

We asked this question on our survey as it important to know whether there is a potential audience would view our trailer when we created when. The large percentage of people (67%) said they would purposefully watch a trailer and a smaller percentage (33%) said they would not purposefully watch a film trailer.

If so what form of media do you use to view the trailers?

The use of YouTube was clearly the most obvious way to view a trailer for our potential audience (82%) therefore we would want to upload our trailer on to YouTube when the product is finished and therefore perhaps gain a viral following. Other answers included watching TV advert trailers, so it would be useful to potentially gain TV advertising.

How often do you watch a feature film?

We asked this question it would be useful to know who often our audience view films per year, the most popular answer was once a month at a cinema. Therefore we would want one of these films to be a psychological thriller, due to the other answers given related to psychological thrillers I believe this would be likely.

How likely is it that you will purposefully watch a psychological thriller?

This result was very positive as nearly all of the audience survey results showed that the audience would purposefully watch a psychological thriller trailer, which is what our trailer genre is aiming to be.
 

What films have you heard the most 'hype' about over the past year?

The choices for this question were all purposefully psychological thrillers, the most popular answer was inception. Therefore it would be a good idea to take influence from this film and trailer to attract a larger audience.

Characters

Emma Jennings. Main Protagonist and Central Character. Aged between 18-21. Innocence and naivety portrayed. New to the city. Unique style. AttractiveThe powerpoint below shows what different actresses we would want to use if we had the correct budget for our film.(Please click in the bottom right hand corner to view the presentation full screen)

Marc Francis


. Main Protagonist 


. Aged between 20-27


. Talks strange, hard to understand


. No style


. Always Suggesting mysterious things

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