Trailer Plot

The trailer starts with an establishing shot of the house. Then it cuts to a medium shot of David taking a drink from the fridge. When he closes it, we see the fridge door with magnets all jumbled up. There is then a tracking shot of him picking up his props from the table before starting to leave the house in a shirt and tie with a briefcase and coffee flask. When he gets to the door, he then looks over his shoulder and shouts “See you later Love”, before it fades out to long shot as he walks away. This fades in to a classroom where he’s teaching a science class.

   He is stood teaching biology to a sixth form class with a diagram of a cell on a whiteboard behind him. He begins to talk about how bad cells can lead to complications – “When a cell’s chromosomes do this…..complications can arise”. He appears distant before a student asks if he’s okay. Then the student’s voice fades out and everything becomes muffled. As a clock begins to tick, getting louder and louder, the teacher’s face appears panicked and upset, before returning to normal where he asks, “Where was I?” The scene then cuts.

   We then see him sat on the edge of the bed crying. Once again, the clock reads 11:57 and on the bedside table is a vase full of flowers.

   The next scene, we see him in the school once again. This time he catches a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye. He looks out the window to see his neighbour leaving the school grounds, this peculiar because the neighbour has no children of his own. Shortly after, he is called into the headmaster’s office where she tells him she thinks its best he takes some time off after everything that’s happened.

The next scene shows him at the door talking to the neighbour. He appears a lot more dishevelled (messy appearance and clothing) with a shirt sporting a stain and pyjama bottoms. The neighbour says, “Look David, a lot of us are worried about you. We know about the job and the” David then interrupts him with “I’m coming love”, talking to someone in the house before saying to his neighbour “I don’t know what weird, sick game you are playing but leave me and Lisa out of it”. He slams the door. He looks down after shutting the door to find his letters have been opened. He looks confused but suspects the neighbour.

   In the next scene, we see him washing his face in the mirror and he hears a man's voice saying, “You've got to move on, there's nothing you can do”. The next scene shows him in the living room flicking through channel after channel. It fades out and shows him doing it over a few days before music from a piano seems to wake him up from the trance – clubbed to death piano solo. He walks into another room only for the music to stop. The silence is then pierced by an alarm clock with the number 11:57 visible. Behind David we see his neighbour spying through the window out of sight of David.

   Next we hear half of a conversation, “So what do you fancy doing today, Honey? Just staying here? Sure if that's what you want” He then begins to hear ticking again as it approaches the same time as in the school. He looks over to the fridge to see the magnets arranged into words with a time underneath - “It's your fault 11:57”. He panics and becomes frozen to the spot when the sound of trash cans falling over snaps him out of it. He runs outside to see what it is just in time to see his neighbour try and run away. He catches him and asks what he's doing, when the neighbour replies, “Don't worry, you'll be looked after”.

The next scene shows him in the house. As he looks around, rooms begin to fade away until it is just Lisa's room. To check he goes in to find it torn up and messy as if there was a struggle. He runs outside just in time to see a car pull off.

   The film begins to pick up pace showing various scenes of David breaking down. These scenes are completely silent and in slow motion with the exception of the song playing over the scene as he breaks down in the corner, smashing plates, rips posters from the wall etc. We then see him in a room where the walls are covered in photos. The music begins to slow down as the scene slowly fades out and the stops completely. He wakes up in an unknown room where a nurse walks in saying the doctor will see you now. In the final scenes there is a black screen. We hear footsteps before it cuts back in and his neighbour walks in and smiles maliciously. 

New Film Plot

David, aged 23 has a good job working as a biology teacher in his local comprehensive school, where he has a good relationship with the pupils and his fellow teachers. The film begins where we find David at a graveyard. He is sat in front of a grave stone, where he places a bunch of flowers. To whom this belongs to is made unknown to the audience.
   The audience then see David whilst in a lesson. He is taking a lesson on the topic of cancer, which causes him to act out of character. His usual happy self now appears uncomfortable and agitated. His odd behaviour continues, when the next day we see him check the time, this reading 11:57. This seems to alarm David, leaving him flustered. Hoping the children don’t notice, he swiftly sets the class a task, and he sits down at his desk in order to try and contain himself. He sits staring into space as if in deep thought, acting unusual to his normal character. David obviously seems distressed to his colleagues who advise him to take time off and work through his problems.
   David is now at home, when someone knocks on the front door. He answers to find his next door neighbour who has come round to check how things are. They have a brief conversation; however, he can hear someone playing piano in the house, although this is actually in his head. This distracts David, causing him to appear distant. This concerns the people around him even more.
   When the neighbour leaves, David returns to the house. While doing so, he calls upstairs, “It was only Mr Andrews again, want a cuppa love?” There is no reply and David pauses. The piano stops playing as he realises there isn’t actually anyone in the house. He returns to his kitchen to find the mornings post open which he has no recollection of. He then walks further into the room to find a message on the fridge. The message reads 11:57, the same time in which triggered his odd behaviour in the classroom. At this point, the man is convinced there is someone in his house leaving him in a paranoid state. Hearing the slightest of noise makes him overly suspicious, unable to feel comfortable in his own home, constantly feeling on edge.
   David starts calling the name “Lisa!” hinting to the audience who he believes is in the house. He begins searching around the house calling her name, behaving irrationally. He hears the piano playing once again, which leads him to a particular room. The room is full of mementos, where there are photos of a woman, presumably Lisa, plastered all over the walls. It now appears that Lisa is or was someone incredibly close to David, and was very important to him. This seems to be too much for David, where we see him emotionally breakdown.
   The film ends with David in a mental hospital. It is revealed that Lisa was in fact David's long term partner, who had died of cancer. David had difficulty dealing with what happened, unable to let go, where he continued to live as nothing had ever happened. This became too much for David, resulting in him being sectioned.

The Others Poster Analysis

The title “The Others” suggests a group of people which are set aside from the majority, as if labelled as ‘the others’. This therefore suggests they are different, going against what is seen as the norm. It causes the audience to question whether this is the cause of the film.

   The tagline, “Sooner or later they will find you” suggests that someone is hiding from something, therefore showing the characters are faced with fear in the film. This creates a sense of mystery as nothing is hinting at what the characters are hiding from.

   This idea is strengthened through the main image. The actor is included, positioned to the left of the poster. Being surrounded by darkness, whilst holding a light, emphasises the idea of hiding from something. A great sense of fear can be identified with the character due to her facial expression, appearing on edge and anxious.

   The only star mentioned on the poster is Nicole Kidman, this made prominent by being placed directly above the title. This makes her name easily recognisable, possibly making the actor a unique selling point of the film, and it also shows she is the main character.

   The credits are found conventionally at the bottom of the poster. From this we can see that the director is Alejandro Amenabar. He is a successful Spanish director, yet not that well-known. With his name being situated within the credits, and not made a feature of within the poster, suggests this is used as a main selling point relying more so on the actors and mysterious element of the film.

   Although the film is certificated 15, I think it would also reach a more mature audience. For this reason, I think the target audience ranges up to adults of the age of 40. The main experience/pleasure displayed in the film is the mysterious element provided, as there is a great sense of fear created, without giving too many hints away as to what is the cause of this. It makes the audience want to watch the film to find out.  

What Lies Beneath Poster Analysis

                                      

The title of the film is "What Lies Beneath", this initially bringing to mind creature like occurances. However, when looking closer it can be noticed that there is a bigger emphasis on the word 'Lies', this being in a larger and bolder font. This suggests there is something deeper under the surface, as if someone is hiding something. This point can be strengthened by the poster's tagline, "He was the perfect husband until his one mistake followed him home". The use of the past tense shows the audience that his actions have had an impact on the presnt, the title suggesting he has been deciteful. There appears to be conflict between the wife and husband.
   The main image is of a hand, gripping onto the edge of the bathtub, a ring on it's finger hinting this could be the wife. This creates a great sense of mystery and shows the audience someone is in trouble, in need for help as if gripping for safety. The image is simple, yet effetive with the sparse white background creating even more mystery, nothing more is given away through imagery.
   The film's stars are Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, both well known actors but not seen on the poster. There names are clearly placed at the top, their positioning sugeseting equal status.
   The credits are conventionally found at the bottom of the poster, the director's name however is placed above the film title. Robert Zemeckis is well established director, and with his name positioned amonst the poster, rather than in the credits, shows his name would likely be recognisable to the audience. He is a well-known and successful director. However, this is in much smaller print to that of the actors, suggesting these are more of a selling point than the director may be.
   I think the unique selling point here is the great sense of mystery that is given, along with the actors. The film is certificated 15, yet I believe the target audience would reach a maturer audience being able to relate to the married relationships and the conflicts that can arise. The maturer actors as sellign points adds to this. The film would also appeal to both genders.  

   

Changes made since the animatic

As a result of producing an animatic, the group found our original ideas weren't working. This was mainly due to the fact that they weren't capturing the codes of conventions of our chosen genre. Because of this, we have come up with a new plot, which is alot simpler that will be easier to portray in a trailer. It also follows the conventions of a psychological thriller much better than previous. We got to this stage by doing a greater amount of research, where as a group we looked at specific exmples, such as Shutter Isand and Memento in order to help with our new ideas and give us inspiration. With this, we have now created our trailer plot, which will be uploaed in a later post. The next stage is to storyboard this, before going on to film.

Critical Analysis of the Animatic Process

An animatic is the technical process that follows storyboarding, which acts as a “mock up” of the trailer. This is a series of still images edited together and displayed in the sequence with rough music and dialogue placed over top. This allows you to see if the trailer will work visually. From the animatic, the group was able to decide what shots worked and what didn’t, in terms of camera angle, location and props. When taking the pictures, being on location gave us a better idea of what each shot would look like, where it gave us new and better ideas throughout the process. Another important function of the animatic is that the group was able to see if the plot could be identified in the trailer without giving too little or too much away. It also prepared us for time management.

   The first step to the animatic process was to ensure we had a clear storyboard of our ideas, as this meant we were able to plan our time effectively, and the whole group shared the same ideas. From this we made a shooting schedule, segmenting the shots according to locations, as this would be most time efficient, and meant we could organise all the necessary props, costumes and actors needed for the shoot. However, we were unable to stick to this schedule as we were limited as to when we could take these photos as a result of the weather. The group then took the photos, where through this stage we took several photos of the same shot from different camera angles. This allowed us to see which worked most effectively visually. These photos were then taken into the editing suite where the group took general discussion of how the plot was panning out and if our ideas were effective. It was at this stage the group realised we needed to make changes to our plot. Although we plan to revise our ideas, it made us familiar with the editing software and transitions, which will be helpful when we come to produce our new ideas.

   Creating and developing the narrative of the animatic all stemmed from the use of the storyboard. This was beneficial as it meant there were no conflicting ideas and every member had a general point of reference. It gave structure to our work and gave the group order. When in the editing suite, we got a clearer idea of the narrative being portrayed, where it was decided to remove some shots and change the order of some. For example, there were two shots of people running, which the group felt was unnecessary.

   Four shoots took place in total, at four different locations. The only props used were the rope and the phone, the rope being the iconographic image. The actors were chosen due to visual appearance and mainly due to reliability, by choosing members of the group we were prepared to take the responsibility and we would all take the roles seriously. As a result of several shoots, particular changes were made to the angle of many shots, this down to the location and which we found was most effective. Several shots were missing from our animatic, as we were unable to take the certain photos, these being the opening shots of the train. This wasn’t realistic to do because of timing and the cost and so decided we would wait until we started filming to include this.

   When it came to constructing the animatic we uploaded all the photos on to the software and then placed them in the correct order. Once we had done this we then adding transitions, intertitles and then incorporated our soundtrack.

   Choosing the length of shots began at the storyboarding stage where we gathered a rough idea of how long we thought each shot would approximately last. It was in the editing suite we then got a better idea after seeing the images physically where we cut many shots down. Many originally lasted around five seconds which we felt was too long, taking too much of an emphasis on particular shots. We also changed the length of the shots where we wanted to change the pace and create momentum. Changes were also made to the transitions. As a group we weren’t aware of how to create flash transitions using the software, and so used fade to black transitions instead. This turned out well, creating a bigger impact and it adopted a more conventional feel.

   The font used for the intertitles was Ariel Black, this chosen because it would emphasise the seriousness with it being a rather bold font. The intertitles were written in white placed on a black background making the text stand out. We used intertitles in order to strengthen the messages we hoped would get across in the trailer. The name of the film “Retribution” appears in red. This was to show the elements of violence and rage that are involved within the film.

   Overall the soundtrack chosen was effective, for example the non-diegetic sound of the heartbeat emphasised the idea of death and created a tense atmosphere. The music also added to and emphasised the pace of editing. At the beginning the music was very slow and created a great sense of suspense, and then the music speeds up as the action builds in the trailer, creating momentum. The only issue we had with the soundtrack was that we were unable to add dialogue. This again was as a result of lacking knowledge in how to do so.

   Our target audience was predominately male, between the age of early twenties and thirty five. This is reflected through the choice of actor, the majority of these being male, and the action element would appeal strongly to a male audience. However, this film could also appeal to a small amount of the female audience, due to the psychological aspect of relationships which they may be able to relate to.

   Before beginning to make the actual moving image trailer, we plan to revise our current plot. When in the editing suite the group realised our ideas weren't capturing or reflecting our chosen film genre of psychological thriller. This was down to lack of research, where we have now closely looked at more examples of trailers and films of this genre to get inspiration and a clearer idea, where we particularly looked at “Shutter Island” as a group. We are currently working on the new plot which aims to stay truer to the codes and conventions of a psychological thriller.
  My main contribution to the task was developing the storyboard. Here I gave a lot of input in which order I believed would effectively work. When it cam to taking the photos, rather than taking practical responsibilities, I contributed more in that I gave guidance or gave advise. In regards to our new ideas, we have taken our ideas back to my original plot, where I am currently writing up the plot in which we plan to work from. 
   
Below are five key images which create meaning for the audience:

This image creates a sense of unease as the man in the picture is presented as extremely vulnerable. This will cause the audience to question why and make them feel concern for the man.

Here the audience are made aware that the man is scared, creating suspense as they will want to keep watching the trailer to find out more.

This image is effective as this shows the death of the friend, which will cause the audience to feel sympathetic for the other character.

 

Above are the two images in which reveal the alter ego aspect of the film. These shots are cut fast, intriguing the audience as it causes them to look twice. It allowed us to show this element without giving too much away. 

Animatic Process

Through the process of producing our animatic, the group found that our ideas and work so far had not captured or wasn't reflecting our chosen film genre. We feel the main reason for this was our lack of research. For this reason, we will develop our research further and come up with a new idea for our film plot.