Research and Planning - Meeting

Over the half term me and my partner have decided that we're going to do some work to keep ontop of our trailer progression.
Considering I'll be working on sound, I'll be making a test trailer soundtrack with my own software, something longer and more fitting than the GarageBand test.  It won't be the final soundtrack, but could be worked on. I'll also work on cinematography by taking a few photos of objects using different shots to see whether they'll fit with our trailer.
 Chelsea will be working on costume trials and if she can go in town, she'll find available locations for our trailer, and we both will be doing two film poster analysis.
We'll both be adding extra posts throughout the half term. :)

Research and Planning - Production Schedule

 

So I've taken a start at planning what I'm going to do throughout my coursework and this provides rough estimations of when I'll complete certain tasks. I'm not quite sure though when some will start due to the fact that filming will need to start taking place soon and I need to start trial shots.  This is just a guidance as how I'd like things to be completed.  I'll upload another production plan once I've kickstarted on my trailer, to show a better estimation of when things will be done :)

Research and Planning - Equipment and Software list

Software and equipment that I'll use this year will be similar to last year, with the difference of editing software as I am creating a trailer this time, compared to a photo.  These will all be used to help me produce my work.

*iMovie


My partner will be the main one using this software, to edit our trailer together.

*Photoshop


Photoshopped will be used for my magazine and poster designing, so I can edit effectively in order to make it look professional.

*Garageband


I'll use this for part of my sound creating but I'm not entirely sure whether I'll use this software for my entire trailer.  I have other software that I could use. (Will be noted later).

*iPhoto


This will be used just to import movies and images off equipment.

*Blogger


What I'm using right now \o/ I can keep track of what I'm doing on this blog and post everything you need to know :)

*SLR Cameras



 Used to take photos for my poster and magazine at high quality.

 *Video Camera


There was two types of video cameras I could choose from and I chose this as it'll produce high quality footage.


*Mac Computers




 The equipment I use to do my entire work on, edit, produce, blog on.

Research and Planning - Treatment

Overall feedback from my teacher and audience has helped me influence the fact that I'm definitely going to go with my first idea:

• Starts from zombie perspective stalking the main female character and fades to show lapse time.
• 'Clip clop' sound of main characters shoes, zombie noises enhanced 
• Sudden pan around to the characters face
• Dialogue of 'This is my world', or along the lines
• Dialogue of "This city used to be full of life, but then the Acura company came".
• Low camera angle of men in suits walking down a corridor, flashes of a logo
• Graphic match of the logo on the suitcase to the logo on the poster as the character walks down the street.
• "They said they'd help us. They said they'd fix us....They were wrong".
• Zombie fighting scene at fast pace
• Action rock scene music played in the background, but starts off slow in the beginning, speeds up increasing tension and enhancing any sound effects of weapon
• Montage of scenes matched with the pace of the song playing over the top 
• These include scenes of different weaponry used
• Men in suits looking shifty
• A kiss scene with a mystery man
• Seemingly being watched by cctv cameras
• Date of release comes up at the end
• Jumpy bit of a zombie jumping at the camera

Research and Planning - Zombie make-up

Considering our budget, we have to take into account how professional our make-up's going to look. We want to achieve an obvious scary look, but without the severe effects that we may not be able to do. There's a few images I've picked out that we could possibly achieve to make the movie look good, but still keep within our budget and skills.



I like this effect as it's easy to do, it just requires blood and for it to be splattered around the mouth.  No special effect is needed like skin falling off on a severe level.  We could do neck wounds with this to make it look even better, but this would only require fake blood that we can get in no time without anything professional being required.









This is also a make-up idea we could achieve as the skin peeling is make-up my partner Chelsea knows how to achieve.  We could cover a little blood on this skin peeling to give it this look, and then all that's needed is black eye shadow to be dusted over the eyes and underneath to give her the dead and spooky look.

Research and Planning - Garage Band

This is my first try of using Garage Band.
I've imported certain sounds off Youtube that will fit something along the lines of what will sound like my trailer music. I've used gunshots, zombie noises off Left4Dead and action music that all fits to a action, horror movie based on our genre.  Bearing in mind this is only a preview of what my genre of music will be like, it's not going to be entirely like this - I'll improve on sounds and obviously produce it longer.
I have an idea where abouts certain cinematography and editing will be used, so it fits perfectly.  Over the shoulder shots before the gun's fired and  the zombie noise enters will be used, to show the character facing it - once gunfire is shot, there will be a pan around to the characters face to show the expression then a shot reverse shot to the dying zombie.   Once the zombie makes the death noise, the camera goes back to her and shows the 'smug' impression - followed by a close-up of her putting her gun away. This is only an example of a scene I'd fit together with the music, if I was to use something similar to this.

Research and Planning - Meeting 2/Proposals.

For our first idea:
Our main idea is a female who's trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world, upbeat and "actionfied". There will be snippits of zombies, with fighting and weaponry in use. As the story line goes, she's battling her way through to try and find the people who created the outbreak, and destroy them.

Mis-en-scene:

• 
  
• Back-street allys of town, where it's dim and abandoned - no life there.
• Bio-Hazard posters
• Machine guns
• Melee weaponry
• Low key lighting

Sound

• Zombie noises
• Gun shot
• Action synth and music 
• Fighting and sound effects 
• Sword 'swipes

Cinematography

• Wide shots to place the scene
•  Long shots of the main character
• Possible over the shoulder shots with gun fire/zombies
• Close-ups - followed by pan - slow motion to hear the bullet fire and then a zoom pan around the face to show fierce expression
• Extreme close-ups of certain objects
• Medium close-ups maybe of zombies

Editing

• Fast pace editing
• Panning of the main character
• Crane movement from top to bottom of main character
• Shot reverse shot - main character - zombie/gun - main character 

Idea two: A montage basically of a girl who's followed around by a stalker that's been intrigued for a while. He follows her to a party and drugs her, then she wakes up in a basement and mentally torture her etc.

Mis-en-scene

• Bright lights in party
• Dark allys where the stalker follows her
• Party outfit
• Broken high-heel from trying to escape
• Smudged make-up
• Rope
• Chair
• Dark lighting within basement 
• Some source of light faced on her within the basement

Sound

• Dripping water
• Loud music for the party
• Drousy sound where the pitch and pace lowers and slows down once drugged
• Heavy Breathing
• Sound effects on rope being tightened - cinematography and editing of this could be through her p.o.v and everything's blurry, medium shot of the guy tying her up.
• Creaky steps 
• Slow, creepy scene setting music.

Editing

• Fast paced editing once waking up in basement
• Slow editing of being drugged
• Fade to basement scene
• Blurred perseptive

Cinematography

• Canted angle to show disorentation 
• Short from high angle to make her look vulnerable
• Extreme close-up of eyes
• Long shot to establish scene and show the situation the girl's in
• Close-up of rope tied hands

Research and Planning - Looking for props

Machine Gun

Me and my partner would definitely like to include a machine gun within our prop range.  We already have the prop ready for this, which is convenient.   It does look kind of heavy but the participant will easily be able to keep hold of it as it's not as heavy as a real one, yet still looks realistic. 
We'd like to include a machine gun as it's a heavy military weapon that looks awesome, and provides the whole action atmosphere.  It looks deadly and it will sound deadly, making our trailer look better.  I think it'll suite our character perfectly as well, as the whole "mini dagger" scene isn't for females fighting zombies now really, is it?

Machete

A machete would definitely suite the whole 'killing' theme, like the weapon doesn't even have to be used during the trailer - it could just be placed onto the actors back and the camera could focus on her from top to bottom, showing the bloody covered weapon. It would give a hint to the audience as to what's happened and what will happen in the movie - influencing them to watch it more due to all the "action". 

Research and Planning - Location of trailer

So me and my partner decided that we'd like to film the trailer within the backstreets of town, where it's desolate and quiet, plus it's quite spookey there due to all the allies and sub-urban atmosphere and buildings. It's like a 28-day later location, but not following the same story line etc, we just like the idea of a huge city being completely wiped out, and our main character being the only surviver of a huge break-out.  We'd most likely do this in Manchester, as it's conveniant to where we're located and we understand the area of the town.

 

The allies will look similar to this, as these backstreets are located somewhere around Manchester themselves, however...our trailer won't be located particularly here, we may vary around the town to find suitable areas.

Other areas that could be suited for an action/horror movie could be somewhere like in a different country like within Laura Croft or Underworld - different locations spreaded around the place and not just fixated on a town etc..  Obviously we don't have budgets for our trailer, so we cannot build new parts of scenes that would join together to make a perfect location.

If the movie wasn't so action and more horror, it could take place in a little village, not a town.  This would be more difficult for us to film however as we'd have to require permission off the public so that we could film around their residential area - Some may say no.  We'd also have to find a suitable house that we could film in for tiny snippits of the movie, if neccessary.

Research and Planning - Costume research

Baby Doll  - Suckerpunch

As you can see, the main character within this movie is seen as a 'sexy hero'.  This can be percieved through the costume that's like a 'sailor' top, it comes across seductive to the male audience, which will attract more viewers.  Part of her flesh is on show as she's wearing a mini skirt and her belly's showing, with pigtails in her hair giving her a youthful, school girl look, making her look even more attractive towards the viewers.  The whole image of Baby Doll comes across as innocent, yet a hero as the weapon she's carrying, demolishes a vair few 'baddies', this makes the movie all more interesting.

I've chose this costume to suite something like my movie as I'd like the viewers to find our main character come across as attractive and seductive in the fact that yes she's a female, and yes she does kick ass.  My main character will also partly have flesh on show and have make-up on that doesn't feature  the "rough" look, but a suttle pretty look, not something that would suite a action/horror movie but still looks awesome because of the outfit.

Selene - Underworld

The character within this movie wears skin tight leather, showing off her figure and paticularly because she's all in black, including her hair with white skin and blue eyes, creating a distinctive look that appears attractive to males, especially the fact that she's weilding a machine gun with wet shaggy hair, giving the rough and tough look. She's basically bad-ass.
I've also chose this character to customise my outfit around because it appeals to the whole 'hot killer female', apart from the fact she doesn't show much flesh - this will most likely be different within my movie but still the tight costume look is good and something I could copy - also the wet shaggy hair with plain make-up, enhancing the eyes.

Research and Planning - Podcast