Inception
1) What cinematic techniques are used to establish mood and tone?
At the very beginning of the trailer a voice over by leonardo dicaprio tells us what the film concerns. The music throughout the trailer is very predominant. It is very dramatic, and grabs your attention right from the beginning with a loud droning. This enhances the dramatic tone of the film. The shots are also cut so that they are in time with the music, this can make the music have more of an impact at certain times. As the trailer progresses, the music gets faster and the amount of instruments used increases, this in time with the increasingly shorter cuts helps to build the trailer to a climax, which is the title. This cinematic technique makes the trailer very powerful and memorable.
The mood or genre of the film is psychological thriller/horror, and the film is very darkly lit, adding to the mystery and fear factor. Almost straight from the beginning we are shown unforgettable shots of impossible looking things. What looks like a large mirror is towering over the sky and this is used to show that the film is more fictional rather than realist, it also provides a memorable image that looks impossibly complex to conceive. Proven by Avatar, there is reason to believe that a film that baffles the film industry with innovative technology is likely to succeed.
The titles are silver on black, this focuses our attention on them and makes them stand out. The tag-line of the film is accompanied by a subtle animated city scape, which the camera swoops through diagonally. This addition of computer animation adds diversity to the trailer making it more interesting.
The sound bites towards the end of the trailer are of the characters screaming, this with the increasing music unsettles the viewer.
2)How does the trailer establish the themes and narrative?
The trailer uses a voice over at the beginning of the main actor, explaining what his purpose is in the film. There are also inserts of speech and sound bites that give the viewer clues as to what the film concerns. Inserts of titles that reveal the tag line of the film are also used.
2) How does the trailer establish genre?
The trailer establishes genre
4) Who is the target audience and how is this audience targeted in this trailer?
The target audience is 15 to 25 years old, but this could even go up to 30 years of age due to the complexity of Chris Nolan's films. His are more unconventional than most hollywood blockbusters, and give the audience the chance to unpick the mystery themselves rather than it being blatantly obvious. 15 to 25 is the average target audience for most Hollywood films. This is a younge audience, so the filmmakers try to appeal to them by having a fast trailer with gripping music, and an interesting animated title sequence.
5) What is the reason/ effect for using the director's name and previous work?
The dark night, the directors previous film, was very successful, so using the name will create a larger audience. The director will also gain interest for his previous successful films like momento.
Salt
1) How does this trailer promote and focus on the big star? (look at camera work, editing, sound...etc..)
Most of the scenes in the trailer, bar two include Angelina Jolie. Also, most of the sound bites are of her and there are less of the other characters. Her name is the only one to be shown as a credit.
2) Action films are thought to appeal to a predominately male audience. How does this trailer target both a female and male audience separately?
The film does appeal to men in the sense that they can go and watch an attractive woman, playing the dominant role of a hero. However, it could possibly appeal more to women. This is because women would
3) How does this trailer use editing to create atmosphere?
Heartbreaker
The trailer created for the UK is very cleverly devised in order to appeal to a wider UK audience. Although the film is in fact French, there is no French in the trailer; instead the editors have specifically chosen clips with English dialogue. The soundtrack is also an American song from the film Dirty Dancing. While the song is heard, the trailer also shows a clip of the iconic dirty dancing lift, this intertextuality is used to possibly appeal to the huge amount of dirty dancing fans. Although the trailer is aimed at a UK audience, the voice-over is clearly American; this could be to give the film a higher status, making it seem as though it were a Hollywood film.
The three trailers come across as three very different films. The UK trailer depicts the film as a cheap and cheesy romantic comedy with no real originality, this differs greatly from the other two, which are actually funny, they seem more ironic and less in your face. For example, the first trailer portrays the main man as a sexy womanizer, the others force us to laugh at his slightly ridiculous attempts to seduce his women.
Friday, 25 June 2010
miss leg hw
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 00:50 0 comments
Labels: Trailer Planning
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
INCEPTION
http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2009/12/15/inception-poster.jpg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/apr/12/inception-christopher-nolan-film-trailer
http://inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com/
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 04:22 0 comments
Labels: Trailer Planning
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Evaluation - Q1 - DVD Commentary - Ben Rogers and Luke Thompson
Commentary
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Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Evaluation - Q2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 03:36 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Evaluation - Q3
What kind of Media Institution might distribute your media product and why?
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Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Evaluation - Q4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 03:35 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Evaluation - Q5
How did you attract/address your audience?
Why an 18 certificate?
We decided for the film to be an 18 certificate because we think it will be too scary and gory for anyone under this age. If it is an 18 certificate than it is also more likely to attract our preferred audience, those who love being scared and are horror-film-goers. Since the film is slightly appealing to a younger market, (a market just discovering horror) for instance, under 18’s, this certificate will help increase DVD sales because they will be aloud, with parental consent, to finally see it.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 03:35 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Evaluation Q6
What have you learnt about new technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I had used final cut before, so I had some idea of the things you can do, and the technology, but I had never used it to make something that was final and finished, so it was interesting polishing it to make it as good as my technical abilities could let me. I learnt to be selective with filters and effects in mind of how the film should look. We learnt how to use the camera effectively in getting the right result on the audience, for example, to scare them; we would use a tracking shot and slowly ease in towards the actress, from behind, as if someone was creeping up on her. We also learnt how to build up sound effectively in order to create tension and suspense.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 03:34 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Evaluation - Q7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
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Labels: Year 12: Evaluation
Monday, 26 April 2010
Final Cut - Deadfall - Luke Thompson and Ben Rogers
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Labels: Year 12: Film Opening
Friday, 23 April 2010
Research and Planning - Props – Divorce papers
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Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Location
The setting will be in an apartment with warm tones, this apartment is big enough for two children and a mother. There will have to be a desk and a separate room opposite the desk, for the body to be discovered, as well as a kitchen for the kettle.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:21 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Characters
The main character is a mature woman, in her very early forties. She will have brown/mousy blonde hair and big brown eyes. She should be quite independent looking to begin with, and like a stylish businesswoman but also having aspects of a mother of two. She should look like she has had a hard days work but content to be at home. She should also be angry about her divorce but not letting it upset her.
Actors who inspired this role include:
Sandra Bullock


- Her mature and independent look is very good for this character.
Julia Roberts

- Her appealing look is good to make audience easily engage with her.
Jodie Foster

- Her slightly troubled but happy and confident look is a good representation of my character. She appeared in a film called Flight Plan, which is similar to my film in that her character gets framed and only she knows and tries to reveal the truth, but no one will believe her.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:14 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Possible Film Producers
Working Title - Working Title is a possibility because they are a British Company that is very involved in the production of international, particularly British-American movies (which is good because we are using an American actress in our starring role), though many of their British movies are comedies, they also have produced several American thrillers, such as State of Play, United 93 and the upcoming Green Zone. They are one of the best producers of internationally popular British films.
Pathé - Pathé is a large producer of films, based in France it produces lots of British films, particularly of young and alternative directors, with the American Blair Witch Project, the British, Adulthood and Slumdog Millionaire. As well as this, they produce really successful mainstream thrillers, like Memento, Apocalypse Now. They are also currently producing a British film called Centurion, with a nearly entirely British cast Dominic West, Noel Clarke and Riz Ahmed. They are quite a major producer of British films.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:12 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Target Audience
The main audience is roughly between 15 and 35. The niche audience will be people older than those ages who are interested in horror. The certificate for the film will be ‘15’ because of the violent content and fear, but younger audiences will also be interested to watch the film when it comes out on DVD, with parental consent.
I believe that this is aimed at a conventional thriller or horror audience, so the main audience will consist of young people going to the cinema/DVD shop to watch a film that will provide them with thrilling plot and scary scenes, thus we need to provide them these thrills. On the other hand, there is a niche audience of perhaps more ‘middle-aged’ people, as a whole there are a wide variation of people who go to watch a thriller, we intend to attract a larger audience by providing an intelligent, deep plot. This will appeal to a widest range of audience.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:11 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Style and Tone
The opening scene should start very unsuspecting; the mood should be very normal. This is to make the climax more surprising. To achieve this we will make the colours quite warm, make the scene homely, and wont add any scary music at the beginning. For the first shot, we want to zoom in on the woman while she is having the phone conversation, this will create tension. Camera shots will remain static or just a slow zoom to intensify the verisimilitude of the scene. When the lights come on in the bedroom, it might be effective to have the shadow of the body cast on to the wall behind the woman, and on her. This would emphasize a sense of mystery and want you to know what she is looking at. To achieve this without making it seem unrealistic the light behind the body would be a bedside lamp. The light in this room will also be quite blue/green to emphasize the change in mood.
The genre of our film is thriller/horror. There are quite graphic images and unexpected and perhaps shocking moments. No guns, or drugs like most thrillers entail. Perhaps the genre is slightly leaning to a psychological thriller also, for example, you do not know what is going on at times, and don’t know who is guilty or innocent.
The titles will be very simple, white on black. As a door opens, and the light enters the room, you realize that the black background was in fact the darkness of the room. The first shot will be a long one; it will start as a long-shot and pan round as the woman walks past. (The titles will continue to show at the bottom-right of the screen.) Then slowly ease in toward a mid-shot during the phone conversation. The easing in will also add a little tension to the scene. The very beginning will start in a quite regular way, it is meant to be like any other day, so no scary sound effects as of yet. As the opening progresses however, small incidents that aren’t every day, instead perhaps once in a while, start to happen to the protagonist, for example the phone cutting out. Very subtle eerie sound effects and also the increasing kettle can accompany these. The shots will also become more unconventional, close-ups on her lips, the clock, etc. The next shot will be in a dark room with a door open, showing the woman at her desk. Perhaps here to create suspense, the accompany of some ghostly droning music will be good, it should be very quiet though, almost subliminal. When the woman turns the light on and sees a dead body the music should have a great impact here and be frightening, showing her fear.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:10 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Influences
Influences
The Shining – We want to achieve a similar style for the camera shots, for example long panning and tracking camera shots. We would like our actress to react in a similar way to the character ‘Wendy’ in the bathroom scene of this film. We think her fear and distress is very powerful. Kubrick plays with sound creatively and we want to try and adopting this technique for our opening, for example the sound of the clock ticking, and kettle. Kubrick gradually builds up tension very effectively in his films, and although he does it very slowly and over the course of the whole film, we will try and do the same in the two minutes.
Psycho – We were inspired by Hitchcock’s camera shots. His close-ups, and long shots, and his build up of cuts to develop tension. In Psycho, we like the thrilling quality of someone else being in the house/room. This film appeals to a mainstream audience, which is what we are also trying to achieve. The woman in our film is a similar age to the character in psycho who is murdered. She looks young, yet is a mother of two and is just reaching her 40’s. With this choice of age we are trying to appeal to young and older audience members.
Panic room – The idea of having a woman on her own with the responsibility of her child. The sense of paranoia is very effective in this film. We watched the film trailer to get ideas for building tension and for the story.
Flight Plan – The story is similar to that of ‘Flight Plan’ – a single mother whose child is kidnapped. This relates to part of our theme, ‘destruction of the family’ and to the woman being alone and vulnerable.
News – The case involving Tony Martin partly inspired the story. We were interested in the idea of how far one might go to protect their property and family in a burglary situation. Tony Martain was prosecuted for manslaughter after killing a sixteen-year-old boy because his home was being violently robbed. Our character wont reveal a gun, but we were interested in the frightening aspect that if someone is criminally trespassing in your home, you might not be able to defend yourself properly.
We were also inspired by North by Northwest, the way it didn’t seem like a thriller at first, until a sudden surprise. It showed the character’s normal life and displayed it naturalistically, this emphasized on the idea that it could happen to anyone.

The picture depicts a normal workday from North by Northwest.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:06 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Shot List



Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 01:59 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Location shots
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 01:59 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Script
[FADE FROM BLACK OR CAMERA IN DARKNESS AND DOOR OPENS]
[CATHERINE ENTERS, SLAMMING DOOR BEHIND HER, CONTINUES TO TURN ON LIGHTS AND SHE GOES OVER TO THE KITCHEN TO TURN ON THE KETTLE AND WALKS OVER TO THE ANSWER MACHINE TO LISTEN TO HER MESSAGES]
ELECTRONIC VOICE: (SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF) YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE...
[SHE PRESSES THE BUTTON FOR THE FIRST MESSAGE]
BENJAMIN: Hi, Cath, um, it’s me, err well I’m coming over to discuss, well, t-that problem, I’ll be over in an hour... [ANSWER PHONE SAYS ‘MESSAGE LEFT AT 4:54 PM’]
[SURPRISED, CATHERINE LOOKS AT THE CLOCK, IT IS 7:54, SUSPICIOUS AT FIRST BUT THEN ROLLING HER EYES AT HIS LACK OF PUNCTUALITY, SHE IS DRAWN BACK TO THE NEXT PRIORITY ON HER LIST, RINGING HER MOTHER]
MOTHER: Hello? Hello?
CATHERINE: Hello
MOTHER: Oh [AS IF RELIEVED], hello darling
CATHERINE: How are they? Are they OK?
MOTHER: The kids are fine, they’re just getting ready for bed now
[CATHERINE SIGHS, RELIEVED, IT IS EVIDENT THAT SHE IS A PROTECTIVE MOTHER]
MOTHER: Why are you ringing on the house phone, you never---
CATHERINE: I lost my mobile, probably been stolen, I just left it on my desk and it was gone, I can’t think of anyone at work who would do that
MOTHER: [PATRONIZING] I always said that you needed to take better care of...
[THE PHONE APPEARS TO FLICKER OUT]
CATHERINE: [RATHER SCARED, THE PHONE RARELY JUST STOPS] Hello? HELLO?
[SHE FOLLOWS THE MODEM CORD, TO THE MODEM ITSELF. NOTHING SEEMS TO BE AMISS WITH THE MODEM, HOWEVER SHE PEERS IN TO THE FLOOR MIRROR, CONFUSED BY SOMETHING THAT THE AUDIENCE CANNOT YET SEE]
[AS THE CAMERA CUTS TO A SHOT OF HER, IN THE DARKNESS OF THE ROOM THAT SHE IS STARING AT, WE NOTICE THAT SHE SEES SOMETHING IS DEFINITELY WRONG, THE CAMERA FOLLOWS HER IN THE ROOM, SHE TURNS THE LIGHT ON AND SCREAMS AT WHATEVER IS ON THE BED, THE CAMERA ZOOMS IN UNTILL JUST ON HER EYES, SHE LOOKS TO HER RIGHT SLOWLY AND THE BEDROOM DOOR SLOWLY CLOSES]
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 01:58 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Plot Sequence
Camera is in darkness, you hear a key in the door and a woman walks in her home. The light from the hall outside spills into the darkness. She turns the lights on and puts her keys on top of some divorce papers lying on a table next to a picture of her and her children. She runs to the kitchen and puts the kettle on, the noise of the kettle is an increasing and foreboding noise, for example the squealing, and this increases tension. She goes over to the telephone that is on a desk, sits down and realizes that there is a message on the answering machine, she presses play and a male voice says, ‘Hi Anna, um, its me, err, I’m coming over to discuss the, um… problem. I’ll be over in about an hour.’ Then the answer machine recalls, ‘message left at 4:54 pm.’ At this point the kettle stops to mark the suspiciousness. A close-up shot of the clock shows 7:14 and you can hear the ticking above the ambient noise. The woman is slightly skeptical but then rolls her eyes, remembering his terrible punctuality. She then rings her mother.
Mother; ‘hello’
‘Hello’
‘Oh hello darling’
‘How are they?’
‘Oh the kids are fine, they’re just getting ready for bed.’
The woman sighs with a smile.
‘Why are you ringing on the house phone you never—‘
‘I know, I lost my mobile, well, it could have been stolen but I can’t think who at work would do such a thing.’
‘I always say you need to look after your—‘
The phone cuts out, the woman is confused and says ‘hello?’ She follows the cord and looks at the modem. It seems fine. There is a floor mirror, next to the modem, she looks at it and suddenly turns around. The audience, at this point, doesn’t know what provoked her to react in this way, but they also don’t need to. Perhaps she did not leave the house in the way it is now. The shot that the camera cuts to as she whips her head around, is in a dark room with the door open; you can see the woman at her desk through the doorframe. She looks over and squints to see what is lurking in the darkness. She walks over skeptically, and slowly. She turns the light on, (with the switch inside the room.) Suddenly she screams so terrified and covers her mouth with her hand. She presses her back against the wall and stares with big eyes, while almost hyperventilating. The shadow of a lumpy and distorted shape is cast onto the wall and consequently her. The camera tracks towards her as she screams, getting closer and closer to a close-up, she doesn’t look away from the body. When her face takes up the whole screen and the camera stops she has a slight inkling and slowly looks in fear to her left. Blackout. Main tile.
Alternate ending: Perhaps she looks slowly to her right and then a shot from outside of the room shows the door slowly closing, with the camera tracking backwards at a similar rate to the door.
Across the rest of the film, our heroine escapes from her home. She then makes any effort to protect her kids from the murderer. She is also wrongly being trialed for the suspected murder of her husband and despite the fact that she has no experience, is going to have to take the law into her own hands to catch the murderer and reveal him as evidence to the police.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 01:58 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - General Outline
The genre is ‘thriller’ - an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage. Thrillers usually have sub-plots and a complex story line. Our thriller is partially about mixing the aspects of the genre of horror and film noir/neo-noir with the ideas of a mystery and psychological thriller, we intend to put a lot of emphasis on the fear/emotion of the main character through using visual style and a rather intriguing plot, we intend to make the film curve away from ‘gung-ho’ violent thrillers and make it more about entrapment and the feeling of being truly scared.
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Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Research and Planning - Storyboard
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Labels: Year 12: Research and Planning
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Part 7 - Exhibition
Q1. For me, i like it when a cinema has a seating area, possibly with food, like Clapham Picture House, it is very cosy and quite homely. But i don't really mind about appearance, i will go to the worst cinemas as long as the viewing quality is good.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:33 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Other
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Part 6 - Distribution
Q1. I think one of the reasons for so many people seeing Pirates of the Caribbean 2, was because of the success of the first film. It was critically acclaimed and made 654,264,015 dollars world wide. This, combined with good marketing and the fact that the second film was a good film, probably contributed to its success.
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 02:26 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Other
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Part 5 - Production
Q1. Choose an actress from the list above. What would they bring to a role in a film?
Production Companies
Distributors
- Pathé (2009) (UK) (theatrical)
- Marv Films (as Marv Partners) (presents)
- UK Film Council (presents)
- HanWay Films (in association with)
- Prescience Film Fund (as Prescience) (in association with)
- Framestore (as Framestore Features) (in association with)
Posted by Luke Clayton Thompson at 07:18 0 comments
Labels: Year 12: Other












