Ransom Note

Today I created a ransom note to be used in our trailer. I aimed to create an anonymous feel of being watched for our main protagonist and feeling out of control and out of depth in his office worker, geeky side then we will quickly see another side to the character thats not afraid to fight a seeming impossible task.

Possible Film Titles

Strange Conventions

Eye to Eye

Imperceivable Truth

Unknown

Shrouded Truth

These are all possible film titles for our film as our film contains a man who is hiding a secret life and using an alter ego to manage it and keep it seperate from his other life until they both have to combine to save his family.

Mood Board

This my moodboard that I have designed to show the theme of our film and the main elements/scenes of the film.

Animatic

Storyboard 6

Storyboard 5

Storyboard 4

Storyboard 3

Storyboard 2

Storyboard 1

Audience Research Continued

As our film is going to be an action film I have been using the Pearl & Dean website to collect information about the audience profiles that have watched various action films so we can analyse the information and make informed decisions as to who our traget audience will be.

Transporter 3 tells us that the majority of audience is male and is widely spread across the classes except for upper class. The age of viewers is also at its maximum where we predicted it would be.



The audience profile for The Dark Knight has a wider audience than Transporter 3. The film appealed to more females and a wider variey of classes and ages however our main age range that we are focusing towards is still the majority of the audience.

The Matrix has appealed to each class reasonably equally which could mean that society has changed since the late 1990's and now due to technology the higher classes dont need to as they have the new technology for viewing films at home such as blu-ray and 3D televisions. The Matrix appealed to mainly males as we predict our film will and also appeals to our main age range which we also predicted.

Due to this research it seems that our predictions for our target audience our mainly right. The age range we have predicted will see our film seems like an accurate prediction based on other action films. Our film may attract a wider audeince base due to females wanting to see it due to the love side story however I don't think the higher class will want to watch our film as it is mainly action with a narrative that they will not enjoy compared to films they are likely to watch.  

Audience Research (Typical Audience Members)

Our film is going to be targeting the 18-34 age range because this is the main age range of audiences for action films based on statistics of various action films on the Pearl and Dean website. They are mainly middle class and are mainly males that are attracted to action films.

This image from the Pearl and Dean website shows the audience profiling for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. This shows that our target audience is correct as all the characteristics from our prediction of our target audience match the audience for Mission Impossible. There are quite a large amount of audience that ae not within our chosen boundries which shows that action films are having to have a deeper more meaningful plot and maybe mix genres such as romance to attract a wider audience to keep profits up as sticking to one genre and aiming it at a small audience will not work nowadays and the film will flop at the box office.

Prop Ideas #2

Another idea we have is that the killer/kidnapper has a pistol along with a knife as it shows that they are more advanced than a normal kidnapper and can hint to the audience that the kidnapper has previous history with guns and having been trained up by some sort of organisation which can also been shown through the kidnappers skills such as hand to hand combat and some of the equipment he has to hide his safehouse/warehouse. This can also indicate to the audience that the kidnapper has a history with the main character and could possibly want revenge for something that happened.

A History Violence Trailer Analysis

The trailer shows a regular life and a regular routine for the main character through the use of black screens to seperate clips showing typical father activities such as watching his son play baseball and going to work and back home again. We will also use this technique in our trailer to lul the audience into a false sense of security with our character then he will surprise the audience with his sudden flashbacks from his alter ego and a connection is then formed between the audience and the protagonist because the audience feel that know his deepest darkest secret and are trusted to know it.

When the main character flips to his past ways in the trailer it is shown through the use of white flashes and we will use something similar in our trailer to show the audience the character has changed state but it will also be seen through the quicker shots and the increase in pace to accomodate the action being shown.

Mission Impossible 3 Trailer Analysis

I have chosen to analyse the trailer for Mission Impossible 3 because in the film Ethan Hawke is retired and is living a normal life with his girlfriend which is simmilar to our narrative so it is a good trailer to analyse.

• The start of the trailer uses long shots to establish the location and the character is shown to the audience in various shots in quick sucession to show the audience he is a main character. The name Ethan Hawke is then shown on a screen which the audience assume is the main character. In our trailer we intend to set the scene and show the main character to the audience in the first few seconds of the trailer to grab their attention and start raising the tension.
• In this trailer they also use a man talking and being threatening in between other shots which is effective because it raises tension due to his speech being disjointed. The trailer also cuts away to black screens regularly to again raise tension and sometimes speech will continue over the black screen and the setting will change which is useful to raise tension and keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
• The pace of the trailer then slows down in the middle and inter titles are used to inform the audience when the trailer will be released and maybe the films tagline such as "this summer, the mission, begins". Which is a convention of a trailer and we will follow in our trailer.
• The trailer then picks up pace again and clearly shows the genre of the film through explosions, guns, fights and dangerous situations such as jumping across roofs. We will use pace and showing the genre to our advantage in our trailer as it keeps the audience interested and gives them enough information to want to see the movie when its released.
• At the end of the trailer it cuts to the title of the film in the same font as the intertitles and then shows the date with the institution logo underneath which gives the most amount of information to the audience in a short space of time which is also clearly presented to the audience which is what we will do in our trailer.

Institution Research

The Dark Knight - Warner Brothers and Ledgendary Pictures
The Matrix - Warner Brothers
Saving Private Ryan - Dreamworks SKG
Aliens - 20th Century Fox
Die Hard - 20th Century Fox
Kill Bill Vol. 1 - Miramax Films
V for Vendetta - Warner Borthers
Mission Impossible 3 - Paramount Pictures

From this information the institutions seem to vary greatly and there is no definitive institution that produces better action films than others. However due to the amount of blockbuster being produced by Warner Brothers our film would probably be produced by Warner Brothers to ensure our film is targeted and marketed to the correct target audience to ensure the maximum amount of potential audience can view the film and generate a profit from the film.

Prop Ideas #1

This is an idea of the ransom note that will be left on the fathers desk at work. It follows the traditional ransom note style of being made up from cut out letters to keep the sender anonymous. Following the convention allows us to use the audiences shared understanding of other media texts to know the conventions of a hostage film so we can play around with the conventions slightly to keep the film original to give it a unique selling point.

Location Research #3

The scenes where the husband is seen with his family undergoing their morning routine will mainly be shot in the kitchen as this tends to be where most modern families spend most of their time both in the morning and the evening. This will make the film more realistic and relatable for the audience.

Location Research #2

The man's office will be an isolated unit in the office to give privacy and show that he's individual from the other workers in the office. It also conveys the fact that the man is made to look like a normal businessman.

Location Research #1

The location for when the mans family gets kidnapped will be a dark derelict area, possibly a warehouse. This creates the sense of danger and mystery and ambigouity due to the darkness and the fact that there are many derelict warehouses throughout the country.

Costume and Character Research

The main character will be what seems like an normal businessman that works 9 till 5 to provide for his family. His family is his wife, and children. He will follow businessman stereotypes such as being clean cut and fashionable.

The children will be typical middle class children that are polite but are realisitic in the fact they have arguments with each other like most young children. They will wear simple clothes such as polo shirt and trousers for the boy and dresses for the girl however they may have to wear school uniform.

Certificate Research

I have looked into various action films shown on the "IMDB Top Rated Action Titles" to see what certificate was chosen for them so i can create an informed decision as to what certificate our film will be.

The Dark Knight - 12A
Lord of The Rings, The Return of The King - 12A
Inception - 12A
The Matrix - 15
Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark - PG
Terminator 2, Judgement Day - 15
Saving Private Ryan - 15
Aliens - 15
Die hard - 18
Spider Man - 12A

This list of action films show that the majority of comic book based films or more recent films are rated as 12A however the films from the 90's are classed as 15 possibly due to more gore and violence such as the use of close quaters weapons such as knives rather than just using guns and explosions where the explicit content such as death and gore is not seen as much.

Due to this research I have decided that our film will be rated as 15 because although we want the film to appeal to the widest audience the amount of violence that will be shown through guns, explosions and hand to hand combat it will not be possible to class this film as 12A so it will be classed as a 15.

The Dark Knight Trailer Analysis

As we have chosen an action film for our trailer I have chosen to analyse the Dark Knight Trailer.

• The trailer uses a monologue over the top of the footage and black screens sperating footage that create tension and is used very effectively to give the audience a sense of anticipation and intrigue that keeps them focused on the trailer. The voice used is also well spaced out and has good length pauses to also help with the anticipation but is also very clear so is easy for the audience to understand and this could be effective in our trailer as it could be from the killer's point of view overlooking the protagonists life and watching him and explaining to the audience his life and story.
• The trailer also cuts from action scenes such as explosions to people clamly talking which creates pace change and is unusual so the audience feel uneasy because it is not following normal trailer conventions which we can use to create an interesting bond between our audience and the characters.
• The trailer uses abnormaly long black screens to seperate clips such as the 2 second long black screen whilst the joker says "good evening ladies and gentlemen" which creates tension but also allows the audience to focus on speech and sound as well as images and then the black cuts to the joker shooting his gun. We can use this technique to exagerate the killers voice and power to the audience.
• Also in the trailer the speech becomes shorter towards the end and key quotes are said to the audience such as Harvey Dents quote about living long enough to see you become a villain the music stops to create a hard hitting moment for the audience and to signify its importance which we can use in our trailer to create either a heart stopping moment for the audience or just show importance on a tag line or major quote from our film.

Title Sequence Research #1

Today I have been doing research on possible title sequences to be used in our trailer. Because our film is going to be an action film the titles should clearly show the genre through the font, colour and animation that the title will undergo.



This video shows an action movie title sequence that someone has created. It seems quite effective as the font is bold and very clear to read which fills the very male stereotype that is associated with action films. The colour of the text is a metallic silver which shimmers which works well as it grabs the audiences interest. The animation of the titles also works really well because it follows the action genre with things exploding and loud, exaggerated sound effects working in time with the titles.