Brief
Our brief is to produce a teaser trailer which should vary from 30-60 seconds, the shorter the teaser trailer the more effective and dramatic it would be. Along our trailer we also have to produce a film poster and a magazine cover in relation to our film. We are to use weebly to put up all our planning, research and the coursework itself and also the evaluation of our whole project.
Brainstorming
Before we started our project we had to decide on what genre our movie has too be, so in doing this we made a brainstorm of all the genre we knew and what conventions each of them contained.
We did a lot of extra planning before starting to do the planning and research for our video. We did this extra planning so we had in depth work and so we could divide the project between each others.
After planning the different roles and divided tasks, we began going through our lists.
Questionnaires And Analysis.
In order to go ahead and make our teaser trailer, it was important to look at what kind of target audience we would be aiming for and what kind of genres and age groups would have an interest for our genre of Mafia and gangster films.
This is an example of the results we receive from our questionnaire (To enlarge click the image below).
This is an example of the results we receive from our questionnaire (To enlarge click the image below).
The questionnaire that we had thought of are listed below:
- What gender they were
- Their age
- Questions about the genres such as - how often they watch it, expectations of a mafia film and to list a few they knew
- What genres they enjoyed watching
- Length of a teaser trailer
- What must be in an teaser trailer to attract them
We learnt several things from the questionnaire:
- What was our target audience? 15- 24 years old were really interested in the idea of a gangster film. Also, we learnt that a lot of woman actually enjoy gangster films but modern films like 'Lucky Number Slevin' and 'Public Enemies', but not classics like 'The Godfather because it's too long
- What is the main aspect of a teaser trailer? - We learnt that the audience want to see a lot of the main character. In our case, we want to portray Marcus
- Chosen Genre: Mafia/Gangster
Plot for 'The Goddards'.
A young man torn between a normal life and his family business. Losing majority of his family and friends, including his mother, makes Marcus want to destroy the gangster family and get rid of those who will and have harmed him, this may included his father, Dre Monte Goddard, leader of the business and destroyer of the lives of marcus and his younger son, Jamieson.
Production Company.
As a group we stumbled upon a prefect name for our production company. We didn't follow other groups and just end up putting all the initials of our name together to produce a name, we felt that this didn't really show the creative ability that we had in us so we decided to call our production LAZARUS PICTURES. We picked Lazarus Pictures because we felt that it would make our group stand out and seems like a very strong name. Whilst researching other production companies we realised that there are many companies with unique names that stand for its own meanings such as " Vertigo Films" and "Paramount Pictures".
Group Roles.
After we agreed on our production company we then decided to slipt up our roles in the group so not everyone would be stuck doing the same things and waste a lot of time. We decided to make this fair and ask each of the group members what they felt was their bestest skills were in media, doing this we were then able to allocate different roles according to our ability. As this project is all about working together as a group we decided that the filming would be done together with all the members there. Dividing the roles meant that we were able to save time and not have everyone working on the same thing when they weren't needed. This also meant that everyone played a part in our coursework and everyone was putting in equal effort. As the process we learned that we had to work together so we were able to help each other in different aspect of all work so all in all we worked well and support each other.
Logbook.
We wanted to stay organized through-out our whole project so we decided to keep a logbook of everything we do at each of our group book, this way we would be able to divide our work amongst each and keep everyone busy doing their own work.
Filming, 'The Goddards'
It took us three days to film the footage of our trailer. On the third day we did all of our extra footage.
Filming Schedule
Tuesday 12th October 2010
3:30PM - Start setting up the green room for the restaurant scene
4:00PM - Start filming the restaurant scene
4:45PM - Start filming outdoor scene of Marcus and the gun
5:15PM - Take a 15 minute break
5:30PM - Record the outdoor kissing scene
5:45PM - Blood scene - in the garbage shed
6:00PM - Clean up and put the props away
Wednesday 13th October 2010
4:00 - Shoot Curtis and Joseph's scene in LLZ
4:30 - Film Bijal and Curtis' scene
5:15 - Shoot Curtis solo scene
6:00 - Shoot Curtis, Jamerson and Joseph's outside scene
Thursday 14th October 2010
1:00 - Shoot all the extra footage
4:00 - Put all the footage on final cut pro
5:00 - Start sorting out the relavant footage needed
Filming, 'The Goddards'
It took us three days to film the footage of our trailer. On the third day we did all of our extra footage.
Filming Schedule
Tuesday 12th October 2010
3:30PM - Start setting up the green room for the restaurant scene
4:00PM - Start filming the restaurant scene
4:45PM - Start filming outdoor scene of Marcus and the gun
5:15PM - Take a 15 minute break
5:30PM - Record the outdoor kissing scene
5:45PM - Blood scene - in the garbage shed
6:00PM - Clean up and put the props away
Wednesday 13th October 2010
4:00 - Shoot Curtis and Joseph's scene in LLZ
4:30 - Film Bijal and Curtis' scene
5:15 - Shoot Curtis solo scene
6:00 - Shoot Curtis, Jamerson and Joseph's outside scene
Thursday 14th October 2010
1:00 - Shoot all the extra footage
4:00 - Put all the footage on final cut pro
5:00 - Start sorting out the relavant footage needed
Character Profile.
Actor's Name: Joseph Mdala
Character's Name: Dre Monte Goddard
Age: Unknow
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Goddard migrated from San Andres to Chicago to carry on the family business. In a short amount of time the Goddard's became know as the most powerful mobster family in Chicago. But now the time has come where he must pass on the family business to his eldest son because his main priorites in life are family , honour and money.
Character's Name: Dre Monte Goddard
Age: Unknow
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Goddard migrated from San Andres to Chicago to carry on the family business. In a short amount of time the Goddard's became know as the most powerful mobster family in Chicago. But now the time has come where he must pass on the family business to his eldest son because his main priorites in life are family , honour and money.
Actor's Name: Curtis Jackson
Character's Name: Marcus Goddard
Age: 17 years old
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Marcus is the eldest of the two brothers in the Goddard family. Throughout his whole life Marcus has just been taught about family honour and respect. Now he knows his time has come where he will have to take over the family business, but one thing he has wanted for the last 20 years is to get out of the family busniess not only that but also to get his little brother Dylan out.
Character's Name: Marcus Goddard
Age: 17 years old
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Marcus is the eldest of the two brothers in the Goddard family. Throughout his whole life Marcus has just been taught about family honour and respect. Now he knows his time has come where he will have to take over the family business, but one thing he has wanted for the last 20 years is to get out of the family busniess not only that but also to get his little brother Dylan out.
Curtis' Character Background - Video about Marcus' background and what Marcus is going to do
Actor's Name: Jamerson
Character's Name: Dylan Goddard
Age: 10 years old
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Dylan is the youngest one of the family, he isnt aware that his father is the head of the mafia to him his family is just a normal family. He loves his father and brother the same amount and isnt aware of the constant conflict between the two of them.
Character's Name: Dylan Goddard
Age: 10 years old
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Dylan is the youngest one of the family, he isnt aware that his father is the head of the mafia to him his family is just a normal family. He loves his father and brother the same amount and isnt aware of the constant conflict between the two of them.
Actor's Name: Bijal Kara
Character's Name: Nikki Sean
Age: 17 years old
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Nikki is Marcus' girlfriend, they have been close friends since a very young age so she is is the only one who understands him really well this is why she doesnt think Marcus will be able to get out of the mafia business so she decided its time for her to leave and not look back.
Character's Name: Nikki Sean
Age: 17 years old
Location: Chicago
Life Story: Nikki is Marcus' girlfriend, they have been close friends since a very young age so she is is the only one who understands him really well this is why she doesnt think Marcus will be able to get out of the mafia business so she decided its time for her to leave and not look back.
Teaser Trailer Research.
Before we could start making our teaser trailer we had to look at other trailers where we could get ideas and infulences from them. We really enjoyed looking at these teaser trailers and we felt that out of all the ones we saw these three were the best. Also while looking at these we were also able to decide what kind of genre we wanted to do.
Sin City creates mystery with the black and white colour theme with random vibrate colours to surprise, thrill and even excite the audience. It has drama, romance and action all in the trailer which tells the audience what the movie is going to be about and creates suspense.
Looking at the Super 8 trailer we get the idea of a teaser trailer having a lot of suspense and leaving the auidence with no clear idea what the movie is going to be about is brilliant. It has no characters or viable storyline and this just excites the audience even more to thinking "what's going on?"
Buried starts off the trailer with just darkness and the breathing makes your heart beat fasting and puts you in the position that the character seems to be in. The visible image in the whole trailer is off him with the lighter this whole trailer creates suspense and it leaves the audience wondering why he is buried alive.
Influences.
After deciding our movie genre we went onto to doing some reasearch to see the forms and convention of the typical mafia and gangster movies to get ideas which we then could produce on our own movie. We decided to look upon the general mafia movies like The Godfather, GoodFellas, Scarface and American Gangster, we felt that watching these movies would show us the conventions of mafia/gangster movies which we could benefit from and add it into our own teaser trailer.
Movie Title Research.
After deciding on the genre and the storyline of our movie, we had to decide on a decent name which relates to our movie so after researching and looking upon gangster movie names like The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, American Gangster we knew that our title had to capture the audience and him them a good sense of what the movie is going to be about.
Title One.
When we sat down to come up with a name that we all agree on we did a brainstorm off all the possible title we could use and after agreeing as a group we felt that we should name it SAVANAS' BRUGARD. We decided upon this name because our family originating from San Andres and looking at the map of the island we found a little place called Savanas so we felt that this name gave a huge importance behind our title for the family because it had a meaning, however looking at names like The Godfather and Goodfellas it wasn't strong enough and we did more research into the name and thats when we found the word Brugard which we felt was usual and different and looked into what the word meant and found out in mafia terms that name meant crime family. We thought this suited with our movie because our film is based on our family being a powerful them being the largest crime family in London.
Title Two.
When we started showing our trailer to our audience we got a lot of feedback saying they didn't understand what the title meant and that it didn't have any relevance to our movie. So we sat down as a group and felt that after getting a lot of criticism of the name we need to analyse this and looking at it we thought that the best thing we should do is change it given the problems the audience had and the fact that Brugard meaning crime family in mafia terms and our movie wasn't based on the typical Italian family we thought this didn't fit together at all and decided against it. So the second name we decided upon SAVANAS. This still shows the importance behind the name and what the movie is based on.
Final Chosen Title- 'The Goddards'.
Even though we felt that SAVANAS was the perfect name for our movie as we thought it fitted with the importance of the meaning behind it. As we carried on doing different aspect of our project we still didn't really feel that SAVANAS was the best name that we could come up with so after a lot of group meetings we came up with a name that we were all happy with and we knew that people would understand the meaning behind it. The final and last name we were all really excited about was 'THE GODDARDS' this name was really really strong and the audience wouldn't be confused either. Goddard being our family surname shows the importance and the power the family have in London and that the whole movie is based on the authority the Goddard's have over everyone they meet and the fear they set in London.
Script.
Even though there isn't much dialogue in our trailer, there is a very important voiceover. Below are the drafts and final scripts.
FINAL SCRIPT - RESTAURANT SCENE
INT. VIP AREA OF 'THE GODDARDS' RESTAURANT
Marcus and Dre Monte are sitting opposite each other at a table. Dre Monte is quiet and serious. Marcus doesn't know what Dre Monte wants and really doesn't want to be there. The room is privately far away from the public area of the restaurant. There is no one around not even a waiter, privately left alone to talk about Marcus' life...
MARCUS
I really need to be somewhere? (staring at his dad). Paps... Look if where not gonna talk...
Suddenly, Dre Monte slams Marcus' gun on the table. Marcus jumps, terrified and shocked his father found Marcus' gun
DRE MONTE
This isn't funny... (Dre Monte calms himself and takes a deep breath) Listen, this isn't a game. I am the only reason why half of
this town has food in it's belly and a roof over their heads.
Son, you might wake up tomorrow and I might not be there it is your responsibility to look after your brother.
Business is family, family is blood and blood is a fucking big expense.
Marcus sits quietly fearing the responsibility he must take on and knowing there may be no escape
END SCENE
INT. VIP AREA OF 'THE GODDARDS' RESTAURANT
Marcus and Dre Monte are sitting opposite each other at a table. Dre Monte is quiet and serious. Marcus doesn't know what Dre Monte wants and really doesn't want to be there. The room is privately far away from the public area of the restaurant. There is no one around not even a waiter, privately left alone to talk about Marcus' life...
MARCUS
I really need to be somewhere? (staring at his dad). Paps... Look if where not gonna talk...
Suddenly, Dre Monte slams Marcus' gun on the table. Marcus jumps, terrified and shocked his father found Marcus' gun
DRE MONTE
This isn't funny... (Dre Monte calms himself and takes a deep breath) Listen, this isn't a game. I am the only reason why half of
this town has food in it's belly and a roof over their heads.
Son, you might wake up tomorrow and I might not be there it is your responsibility to look after your brother.
Business is family, family is blood and blood is a fucking big expense.
Marcus sits quietly fearing the responsibility he must take on and knowing there may be no escape
END SCENE
Shot List.
Below is the list we created before filming, of all the shots we thought we would be taking. We also wrote down extra shots.
Storyboard.
Before we could start filming, it was essential to make a storyboard to give us a structure as to what we want out teaser trailer to look like
Location Research.
Before we could decide what kind of locations we wanted, we researched several films that had a similar genre and similar storyline...
We watched The Godfather trilogy and noticed that the environment is very personal to the characters whether its' in a public or private are
We watched The Godfather trilogy and noticed that the environment is very personal to the characters whether its' in a public or private are
1) Don's office.
The environment is high class. A room surrounded by antiques, valuables and expenses.
The room have venetian blinds, even it a hint of film noir and mystery. Majority of the time we see the room as personal place to the character because Don often talks to Al Pacino's character, Michael.
It makes it even more personal because it's an area of private business. There is a limited amount of people who are seen in the room. Most of the time it's Don, Michael and his men.
The environment is high class. A room surrounded by antiques, valuables and expenses.
The room have venetian blinds, even it a hint of film noir and mystery.
Majority of the time we see the room as personal place to the character because Don often talks to Al Pacino's character, Michael.
The room have venetian blinds, even it a hint of film noir and mystery. Majority of the time we see the room as personal place to the character because Don often talks to Al Pacino's character, Michael.
It makes it even more personal because it's an area of private business. There is a limited amount of people who are seen in the room. Most of the time it's Don, Michael and his men.
The environment is high class. A room surrounded by antiques, valuables and expenses.
The room have venetian blinds, even it a hint of film noir and mystery.
Majority of the time we see the room as personal place to the character because Don often talks to Al Pacino's character, Michael.
It makes it even more personal because it's an area of private business. There is a limited amount of people who are seen in the room. Most of the time it's Don, Michael and his men.
2) Restaurant.
In these scenes, the restaurants are half empty, private even though it's open to the public. This is also a personal setting because it's an italian restaurant.
The light shines on only the tables and the room is slightly dark. In the scene the waiter straight away serves them when they enter and immediately gets their order. Other people watch them as they make their way to the table and watch them sit there, showing they are important.
The light shines on only the tables and the room is slightly dark. In the scene the waiter straight away serves them when they enter and immediately gets their order. Other people watch them as they make their way to the table and watch them sit there, showing they are important.
During the shooting scene, nobody stops Michael as he kills them, showing that he is superior. Even when Michael goes to the bathroom, the lighting is half shadowing the room and him, adding a sense of suspense with has continued building even since the car scene.
1) Private Car Park Murder Scene.
We also watched a more modern gangster film called 'Lucky Number Slevin', which is a film about revenge similar to our story plot.
As part of a plan, a bookie is killed. the murder is quick and professionally killed. This emphasises the mystery in the movie because we don't know why he's killed until the end of the novel.
The setting is dark and industrial making it a perfect setting to kill someone because no one can hear what is happening. Also, you don't have to worry about anyone seeing you.
As part of a plan, a bookie is killed. the murder is quick and professionally killed. This emphasises the mystery in the movie because we don't know why he's killed until the end of the novel.
The setting is dark and industrial making it a perfect setting to kill someone because no one can hear what is happening. Also, you don't have to worry about anyone seeing you.
2) Unexpected Murder Scene.
The scene of a gangster's son's apartment. If we were to see our main character's room it would look modern and filled with expensive items like the leather sofas and glass tables seen in this scene. Like 'The Godfather' there is also venetian blinds, which create a pattern over the dead body like Film Noir lighting.
Location Photographs - Primary Research.
Below are several locations we thought of using for our film
For our restaurant scene we were thinking of using small room which is quiet. Also this room is filled with round tables making it more like the restaurant scene in 'The Godfather'. However for our restaurant we were thinking as well as being owned by the gangster family, it could also have a V.I.P. area where only certain people would be allowed like The Goddard Family and his top clients
We also looked around for a good location for a murder scene where someone could be killed and then have their body dumped. This is outside a toilet, where the lighting is darker and inside the toilets, it's big and quite empty, making more room for the crew and camera.
Another murder scene - Like 'Lucky Number Slevin' this scene is slightly dark and industrial, making it a good place to kill someone and dump a body. Also the lighting is controllable, and the area inside is quite big so we can have a body lying and fit the crew members and other cast on the room.
We also thought about building entire setting more nothing. using the green room we could create the V.I.P, section of the restaurant where it is surrounded by black showing the separation between the restaurant and the private area. Also, we can then using dull lighting and design our own restaurant.
Mise-en-scene Research.
One of the main conventions of a gangster film is a gun, a main aspect of mise-en-scene
Gun research.
It is an offence for any person, without lawful authority or good reason, to have with him in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed except for a folding pocket-knife which has a cutting edge to its blade not exceeding 3 inches.
In the UK, fully-automatic or burst-fire weapons are strictly prohibited. This includes air guns. Firearms disguised as another item are prohibited. Rockets and mortars are prohibited, as are air weapons chambered for self-contained gas cartridges. With a few specialised exceptions, all firearms in the United Kingdom must be licensed on either a firearm certificate (FAC) or a shotgun certificate.
A firearm certificate differs from a shotgun certificate in that justification must be provided to the police for each firearm; these firearms are individually listed on the certificate by type, calibre, and serial number. A shotgun certificate similarly lists type, calibre and serial number, but permits ownership of as many shotguns as can be safely accommodated. To gain permission for a new firearm, a "variation" must be sought, for which a fee is payable, unless the variation is made at the time of renewal, or unless it constitutes a one-for-one replacement of an existing firearm which is to be disposed of. The certificate also sets out, by calibre, the maximum quantities of ammunition which may be bought/possessed at any one time, and is used to record the purchasing of ammunition (except, where ammunition is both bought, and used immediately, on a range under s11 or s15 of the Firearms Acts).
To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be convinced that a person has "good reason" to own each weapon, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, firearms' licences are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for ownership. Since 1946, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a firearm.
Since our teaser trailer required the use of a replica gun and a knife. Due to the legal restrictions put on these props by law, I thought it was best to make an appointment at Hounslow police station our local police to find out the required permissions or licences to acquire carry and use these props. We secured a meeting to meet a police officer who explained that due to our age projective and legal situations we would not qualify to receive any legal permissions or licences to possess these weapons, however we managed to negotiate with the trident division to lend us replica weapons and other items that are considered illegal according to the law to be possessed by people our age (teenagers/young adults). This deal also involved us volunteering our time to trident to help them with workshops and provisions to help combat street gun and knife crime.
It is an offence for any person, without lawful authority or good reason, to have with him in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed except for a folding pocket-knife which has a cutting edge to its blade not exceeding 3 inches.
In the UK, fully-automatic or burst-fire weapons are strictly prohibited. This includes air guns. Firearms disguised as another item are prohibited. Rockets and mortars are prohibited, as are air weapons chambered for self-contained gas cartridges. With a few specialised exceptions, all firearms in the United Kingdom must be licensed on either a firearm certificate (FAC) or a shotgun certificate.
A firearm certificate differs from a shotgun certificate in that justification must be provided to the police for each firearm; these firearms are individually listed on the certificate by type, calibre, and serial number. A shotgun certificate similarly lists type, calibre and serial number, but permits ownership of as many shotguns as can be safely accommodated. To gain permission for a new firearm, a "variation" must be sought, for which a fee is payable, unless the variation is made at the time of renewal, or unless it constitutes a one-for-one replacement of an existing firearm which is to be disposed of. The certificate also sets out, by calibre, the maximum quantities of ammunition which may be bought/possessed at any one time, and is used to record the purchasing of ammunition (except, where ammunition is both bought, and used immediately, on a range under s11 or s15 of the Firearms Acts).
To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be convinced that a person has "good reason" to own each weapon, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, firearms' licences are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for ownership. Since 1946, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a firearm.
Since our teaser trailer required the use of a replica gun and a knife. Due to the legal restrictions put on these props by law, I thought it was best to make an appointment at Hounslow police station our local police to find out the required permissions or licences to acquire carry and use these props. We secured a meeting to meet a police officer who explained that due to our age projective and legal situations we would not qualify to receive any legal permissions or licences to possess these weapons, however we managed to negotiate with the trident division to lend us replica weapons and other items that are considered illegal according to the law to be possessed by people our age (teenagers/young adults). This deal also involved us volunteering our time to trident to help them with workshops and provisions to help combat street gun and knife crime.
Mise-En-Scene.
Below are labelled diagrams of our restaurant setting - the mise-en-scene and location research put together to create the restaurant scene
Costume Research.
We didn't want to go with a 'hoody-with-guns' look, because it is stereotypical and clique. Studying films like 'The Godfather', 'American Gangster', we like the idea of smart wear, shirts, ties and blazer, making the character look more superior and intelligent. It also shows expense, class and style
We looked at 'Scarface' because as soon as Tony started getting money, he brought luxurious items like expensive clothing like silk tops, animal print clothing, dresses for his lady, etc; We also wanted to show the expensive life that the Goddards lived and we didn't want them to look 'tacky' or 'out-of-style'
We liked how the 'Goodfellas' dressed because she showed they had a connnection which is connated through their similar outfits. We liked the use of the red tie because it shows violence, crime and most of all the blood they are going to spill in their line of work. It use also a modern day style which we use today
More about modern day style, we looked at Lucky Number Slevin, which has a gangster theme as well. They wore shirts but without ties, to show elegance but more casual than smart
We went with the influences of 'Goodfellas' because they looked smart but elegant, showing their class. Even though they are in a 'dirty' business, they have style. But because our film was set in modern times (2010), and not 1955, we decided to use a modern day style of skinny tie which is what Marcus wears and not Dre Monte because he is older and has been brought up in a time a thick ties as apart of the smart wear.
Like Goodfellas, we wanted to show that red represents blood being spilt but also wanted to show that Dre Monte is danger waiting to happen
Also, we have Marcus wearing just a shirt and not a blazer because like 'Lucky Number Slevin' we wanted to show a modern look and show Marcus as being more casual showing his rebellious attitude which is similar to Slevin/Henry who doesn't wear a tie because he doesn't wanted to be suffocated by the people he hates and wishes to kill. We also had Marcus wear a white shirt to show his innocence and purity.
Like Goodfellas, we wanted to show that red represents blood being spilt but also wanted to show that Dre Monte is danger waiting to happen
Also, we have Marcus wearing just a shirt and not a blazer because like 'Lucky Number Slevin' we wanted to show a modern look and show Marcus as being more casual showing his rebellious attitude which is similar to Slevin/Henry who doesn't wear a tie because he doesn't wanted to be suffocated by the people he hates and wishes to kill. We also had Marcus wear a white shirt to show his innocence and purity.
Experimenting with Lighting.
Because we have chosen to go with a film noir look to our film we have chosen to use the lighting because the lighting represents a lot about the characters and story. Also, it gave us a chance to test out the new camera we will be using for our teaser trailer.
Before we began recording we took a few pictures
After researching film noir films like 'Strangers on a Train', 'The Big Sleep' and 'Sin City', we began experimenting with chiaroscuro lighting.
We mostly looked at camera angles and then at one of the most famous types of lighting, which is a half light, half dark face, like the image on the right, 'Strangers on a Train', which is of the villain smoking. We thought the lighting represents he's personality. Because he has a psychological problem, he does a lot of things wrong, but if he didn't have a mental illness, he might not have killed a woman he didn't even know.
Before we began recording we took a few pictures
After researching film noir films like 'Strangers on a Train', 'The Big Sleep' and 'Sin City', we began experimenting with chiaroscuro lighting.
We mostly looked at camera angles and then at one of the most famous types of lighting, which is a half light, half dark face, like the image on the right, 'Strangers on a Train', which is of the villain smoking. We thought the lighting represents he's personality. Because he has a psychological problem, he does a lot of things wrong, but if he didn't have a mental illness, he might not have killed a woman he didn't even know.
Below are the photographs Priya took to show lighting. She used one small light on one side of the face.
First she left the camera setting on automatic so the flash was on, and it didn't add a strong enough shadow
This time she then increased the aperture using a manual setting on the camera, and used more of a close-up
She then move the lamp closer to his face but unfortunately, you can see the reflection of the green room, on his skin, making chroma key editing more difficult
After she took more of a medium shot to see if the lighting was effect and it wasn't, but you can tell that the light is very close to the actor
Experimental Video.
Before we could start filming we recorded a few shots in the green room to test out the lighting and to see if there will be any problems with the setting or lighting
This video shows us experimenting with Film Noir lighting, practising with a HD Camcorder, practising camera shots and black and white effect
EXPERIMENTING WITH LIGHTING - We used one soft light on one side of his face to create the chiaroscuro lighting of how this man, Monte Goddard is a gangster and is also a family man. We used the studio lighting because it makes the clip clearer but it's also controllable
HD CAMCORDER - This was the first time using a DSLR, so we wanted to test out how it would be different from using a regular camcorder. The only problem we came across was that when uploading the video (above) onto youtube the HD setting was affecting the image. However we converted the video file from quicktime movie to AVI
PRACTISING CAMERA SHOTS - We practised close ups because with the camcorders we had used, if the camera was too close-up the shot would become out of focus. However with the DSLR we were able to record a close-up with one problems like the close-up of the characters and the extreme close-up of the gun
BLACK AND WHITE EFFECT - We used the black and white effect to use if we could create a more modern day film noir look like 'Sin City', which is unrealistic but we didn't want to create the cartoon effect. To create the black and white effect, we added the video filter, desaturate. Then we added colour-corrector-3-way so we could increase and blacks and whites to make the shading bolder
HD CAMCORDER - This was the first time using a DSLR, so we wanted to test out how it would be different from using a regular camcorder. The only problem we came across was that when uploading the video (above) onto youtube the HD setting was affecting the image. However we converted the video file from quicktime movie to AVI
PRACTISING CAMERA SHOTS - We practised close ups because with the camcorders we had used, if the camera was too close-up the shot would become out of focus. However with the DSLR we were able to record a close-up with one problems like the close-up of the characters and the extreme close-up of the gun
BLACK AND WHITE EFFECT - We used the black and white effect to use if we could create a more modern day film noir look like 'Sin City', which is unrealistic but we didn't want to create the cartoon effect. To create the black and white effect, we added the video filter, desaturate. Then we added colour-corrector-3-way so we could increase and blacks and whites to make the shading bolder
Teaser Trailer
This is our end product of our teaser trailer 'The Goddard's'
Feedback For Our Teaser Trailer
One way we got feedback for our teaser trailer was through Facebook, this meant that large audience from the same age group and older generation were able to see our teaser trailer and give us some feedback in ways we could improve it and ways we cant.
Another way was through YouTube where it attracts a variety of audience from all over the world. This meant that our teaser trailer could appeal to all target groups not only the ones we aimed to attract.
We felt that putting our work on Facebook and YouTube would be appropriate as they are the two most influential website on internet nowadays and this two website is available to mostly everyone in the world today.We also felt that it was useful to ask our peers in our class aswell as asking our teacher, doing this we were able to improve many faults that people didn't find appealing or understand. One of our biggest change was the movie title, our title changed from 'Savanas' Brugard' to 'The Goddards' due to the fact that our teacher as well as other media student didn't find any relevance to the movie so doing this gave us positive feedback which meant that we were able to make a major change and make our work even better.
Another way was through YouTube where it attracts a variety of audience from all over the world. This meant that our teaser trailer could appeal to all target groups not only the ones we aimed to attract.
We felt that putting our work on Facebook and YouTube would be appropriate as they are the two most influential website on internet nowadays and this two website is available to mostly everyone in the world today.We also felt that it was useful to ask our peers in our class aswell as asking our teacher, doing this we were able to improve many faults that people didn't find appealing or understand. One of our biggest change was the movie title, our title changed from 'Savanas' Brugard' to 'The Goddards' due to the fact that our teacher as well as other media student didn't find any relevance to the movie so doing this gave us positive feedback which meant that we were able to make a major change and make our work even better.
