Titles for Film Researching

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchstone_pictures

Originally I was going to open my film with a Touchstone Pictures title but as Touchstone Pictures work under the company of Disney most films are not very explicit. Here are a few of the know films that Touchstone Pictures company have made Pretty Woman, Dead Poets Society, Sister Act, The Insider, Ernest Goes to Camp, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Good Morning Vietnam. These films mostly are aimed towards a younger audience, this means that for my film the Touchstone Pictures Title would not be used as it dosent tend to make the film genre type that my film trailer is, my film is also aimed to the older age group of people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Studios_Home_Entertainment

A more suitable film company title opening for my film would be Universal Studios as Universal Studios Film company tends to make more adult/explicit films etc. For example the film 'The Fourth Kind' etc.

http://www.universalpictures.com/

How I made the soundtrack for the trailer

To make the soundtrack for my film teaser trailer I used a program called GarageBand on an Apple MacBook laptop. Below is a series of images which I screen shot to show what I did and how I made my soundtrack for my thriller teaser trailer.

The first thing I did was make a new project on Garageband, I did this by selecting file then new project, I then I added a new track by selecting track, then new track. By selecting this I then had the option of what type of instrument I wanted to use for the track.

I chose strings and then chose the type of strings to be Orchestral Strings; I found this sound after looking for a while through the instrument section. I chose it because it sounded the spookiest and it would suit my trailer the best.

I then used the keyboard to make my own tune for my trailer with the orchestral strings instruments. I made the buttons of my laptop correspond to the keyboard on the laptop playing the tune.

I then recorded the tune on to Garageband, the tune I made had to go with the trailer so I used the layout trailer video I had made and played the video on QuickTime Player to watch whilst recording the tune/soundtrack.

All I had to do to record the track was press the record button; the picture above shows what the button looks like. When you are recording the dark red record button lights up and becomes a brighter red colour.

On the keyboard you are able to change the pitchbend, modulation, octave and velocity levels.

After I had made the track, I changed the levels on the volume to make it prefect for the soundtrack for my trailer, I was also able to change the side from left or right for the sound on the speaker/sound system.

Once I had made the tune for the soundtrack I pressed file and then went down to ‘Export to iTunes’ and after I chose the quality of the track and then, clicked export. After this it was in iTunes ready to be added to the film trailer.

After it had been imported into iTunes I was able to place the audio track at the playhead in the video editing program- iMovie HD. Then move it to be where I wanted it to start playing in the video/trailer etc.

How I made the film

The video below explains how I made the titles for my film using the program Adobe After Effects. Please watch the full video for a full explanation of how I made the titles for my film.

This video below explains how I made my film using the program iMovie on an Apple Mac computer, it shows the processes that I used to make it. Please watch the full video for a full understanding.

Idea of Trailer with soundtrack

Frist Soundtrack 4 Video

Idea for layout of my teaser trailer

First edit done with footage

Cast

Choosing the cast was easy as each actor has a background in theatre, with some having GCSE and A levels in Theatre Studies and some having performed in different productions at the Art Centre in Jersey and at the Jersey Opera House. I also had to think about age, gender and look of the characters, for example I would not be able to have a little girl playing the bad guy as it would look and come across as very strange. The man playing the bad guy is 40+ years old, whereas the three other characters are young guys of 17-18years old. Having the age difference shows the difference in character etc.

Cast Listing:
Niall McCallum- Bad Guy
Will Robinson-Guy Three
Carl Jenkins-Guy One
Dom Norman- Guy Two

Script

Scene One:
Guy 1- (gasp)

Scene Two:
Guy 1- 'That was such a class trip'
Guy 2- 'Yeh I know what you mean man'
Guy 3- 'Oh guys were is everyone, thought they were meant to welcome us home'
Guy 2- 'Theres a note here, theyve gone out'
Guy 1- 'Really, thats strange'

Scene Three:
Guy 1- 'Run, Run!'
Guy 2- 'Shit!'

(Guy 2 gets shot)

Guy 1- (screaming) 'Oh my god!'

Scene Four:
Bad Guy- 'The jobs done, dont worry about a thing' (laugh)

Scene Five:
Guy 3-(screaming and shouting in pain)

Storyboard camera shots

Animatic for my film

The Story

Below I speak about my film teaser trailer-film plot and then speak about how I decided on the genre. Once I had decided on this all I planned out some ideas of shots i would use, clip ideas etc using storyboards, as seen on the previous post.

Three students get back from visiting University. One student is seen as lazy, another is seen as a smart alake, and the other one is a complete drama queen. After various pranks and misbehaving at college there just out of pirsion maths teacher has had enough. Starting on a on going horrific torturing of students and others for his pleasure. The teaser trailer will not show much of the plot, or even give away any of the plot. It will introduce the three main charcters being the students, using freeze frame and captions. It will also show some of the torturing to show the audience the genre and give them the sense of a thriller/horror genre film.

I decided against doing a comedy film as most good jokes have been done before and it would have turned out to be a bit of a cliché, although it would have been a nicer topic to do. After deciding against a comdey genre film teaser trailer, I began to look into other genres like action and sci-fi,I soon realised both these genres had connotations/various elements that i would not be able to reproduce in a good way.

Action genre films usually contain a lot of extreme action footage for example, a car chase, or a big gun fight, or Parkour, jumping from buildings etc as i would not be able to re-create the extreme action footage i thought this genre wouldnt work. Also i thought about a Sci-fi genre film teaser trailer but realised it would not work as I would need to use a lot of specail effects to re-create various Sci-fi genre film elements, for example, outter space, laser guns, aliens, space ships etc. After looking through film genres I ended up deciding on a thriller/horror film as the elements in that specfic genre would work when producing the film.

Storyboarding- Ideas,Plan of shot, Clips

Target Audience-Genre, Sex, Age, Class

1. Gender-male/female
My film teaser trailer will be made for both males and females to watch. It will not be aimed directly at either sex, but most likely men would prefer to watch it as it may be gory and have a lot of violence in, although females have higher liking for both horror and thriller genre films on average. Using the internet I found out about what film genre both women and men on average watch the most. The table below shows the following-Men’s most viewed/favourite genre film on average is a ‘Drama’ genre film; this is the same with the women’s average.The women’s second highest average genre film is ‘Romance’. The Men’s second highest average genre film is ‘Action-adventure’.

The genre which I will most likely base my film teaser trailer on will be Thriller/Murder genre or Action genre. From the results from the table above I have been able to find out that these genres are liked by both sexes. The film will include violence and be rather graphic so will include a lot of blood and guts. I would like my audience to feel jumpy and be on the edge of their seats. I would do this by adding jumpy sounds to the soundtrack and having graphic footage on screen.

Genre
-Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains.

-Action movies are a film genre wherein the story is largely told through physical action as opposed to dialogue.

2. Age-the age group e.g. elderly, teenagers etc
My film teaser trailer will be a 15 or 18 film because it may include a mild use of violence or explicit violence and a may include mild use of strong language. Below is some information that I found using the internet about age groups for films:

PG
Suitable for viewing by persons of all ages. Occasional violence, swearing and coarse language, and the most innocent of sexually suggestive scenes and nudity are permitted in this category.

12
Parental guidance advised. Theme or content may not be suitable for all children although there is no age restriction. Motion pictures in this category may contain less subtle sexually suggestive scenes and nudity and a more realistic portrayal of violence than in the General category; coarse language may occur more often than in the General category.

15
Suitable for persons 15 years of age or older. Persons under 15 years of age must view these motion pictures accompanied by an adult. Motion pictures in this category may contain violence, coarse language or sexually suggestive scenes.

18
Persons under 18 years of age must view these motion pictures accompanied by an adult. Motion pictures in this category will contain horror, explicit violence, frequent coarse language or scenes that are more sexually suggestive than in the 15 category.

Restricted
Restricted to persons 18 years of age and over. Persons under 18 years of age are not permitted to attend under any circumstances. These motion pictures are "adult motion pictures", as defined in the Act, and may contain explicit sexual scenes, violence or scenes. The director will assign this classification to motion pictures if the director considers that the theme, subject matter or plot of the adult motion picture is artistic, historical, political, educational or scientific.

Adult
Restricted to persons 18 years of age and over. Persons under 18 years of age are not permitted to attend under any circumstances. These motion pictures are "adult motion pictures", as defined in the Act, and may contain explicit sexual scenes or scenes of brutality or torture to persons or animals, that are portrayed in a realistic and explicit manner; however, the scenes would, in the director's opinion, be tolerable to the community.

My film teaser trailer age rating will be 15 because of violence and use of coarse language.

3. Interests-Thriller, Action etc
I would like to base my film teaser trailer around an action thriller genre; it would introduce the audience to the genre by using some typical things that happen in a thriller/action genre film, I would also like to introduce a few of the characters from the film or at least some of the main characters in the film. Using freeze frames on the characters I would freeze on a clip and introduce them using some text/ a title. I will most likely include a lot of blood and graphic with fake blood and guts etc and use of make-up etc, this would make it look more realistic when people get killed in the teaser trailer.

4. Class-ABC1, C2DE, lower, higher etc I would like my film to be for anyone from any class who like to watch thriller/action genre films.

Result and Questionnaire conclusion

My results for my questionnaire have given me a better understanding of my audience and what they look for.

PICTURE OF FILLED IN QUESTIONNAIRE:

Questionnaire Result-On a poster for a film what gets your attention?

From the results to this question I am able to get a better understanding of what people look for on a poster and the best thing on that poster which grabs their attention. According to the results the main thing that caputures peoples attention on a film poster is the main picture which had 20 out of the 25 votes. 3 people voted that the actors names grab their attention. 1 vote said that the film company name gets their attention and 1 vote said the font/title grabs their attention. These results will help me when making my film poster as it can show which part of the poster I need to concentrate on most. The results gathered were from the public, the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 5-50+, from the 25 people there were 15 men and 10 women.

Questionnaire Result-On a film Magazine cover what gets your attention?

From the votes I am able to tell that the most important thing to capture someones eye with on a film magazine is the main picture on the front cover as it had 22 votes out of 25 votes. 2 out of the 25 said the font/title gets their attention and 1 out of the 25 said the stories and review title get their attention. These results will help me when I design my film magazine front cover as it will give me a better understanding of what people want to see.The results gathered were from the public, the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 5-50+, from the 25 people there were 15 men and 10 women.

Questionnaire Result-What is the most intense part of a thriller genre film?

What is the most intense part of a 'thriller' genre film? the results tell me that people think that the main element to make a thriller genre film intense is the use of graphic-with the blood and guts etc. Joint with the second most amount of votes that made a thriller genre film more intense was the characters and the build up in the film/trailer. These results will help me if i decide to do a thriller genre film trailer. The results gathered were from the public, the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 5-50+, from the 25 people there were 15 men and 10 women. One person out of the 25 answered other and said that 'screaming makes it ore intense and would make people jump'.

Questionnaire Result-What Genre do you prefer?

The results which I found for my questionnaire tell me that the most liked genre is an action genre with 7 out of 25 votes, closely followed by 6 out of 25 votes with a comedy genre film and 6 out of 25 with a thriller genre film.These results help me when deciding what type of film genre my trailer should have. As the audiences response was that thier three most liked film genres were action,thriller and comedy, i shall ethier do one of those three genres for my trailer/film. The results gathered were from the public, the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 5-50+, from the 25 people there were 15 men and 10 women.

Questionnaire Result-Where do you most often see a film trailer?

The results which I found from my questionnaire tell me that the majority of people who see film trailers watch them on there TV's. 15 out of 25 votes said they saw most film trailers on TV. the second most votes was 5 out of 25 with people most often seeing film trailers on the internet. The information gathered with this question links well with the question 'which of the following attracts you to go see a film,before it has been released?'. As the most occuring answer/highest vote was film trailers made people want to go see the film, this question tells me where most people see the film trailers. These results will help me advertise my film trailer when it has been completed. It also allows me to understand my audience better. The results gathered were from the public, the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 5-50+, from the 25 people there were 15 men and 10 women.

Questionnaire result-Which of the following attracts you to go and see a film, before it has been released?

As you can see from the results and graph below, with 50 votes, two votes for each person. The highest number of votes was 25 votes saying that people are attracted to see a film before release by the trailers. This shows everyone used one of there two votes to say that trailers are the best way for advertisement of a film before its released. The second and third highest votes were for advertisement through posters and through magazines. These results help me think about the best way for advertising my film and helps give me a background idea of which advertisement I have to concentrate on making the best. The results gathered were from the public, the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 5-50+, from the 25 people there were 15 men and 10 women.

Questionnaire Result Plan

With the results that I gather from my questionnaire I will make graphs showing what people think and showing how people answered to the questions. I shall also show what people wrote in the other comments section. This research and results will help me to understand my target audience better. I will give my questionnaire to 25 people/ as many people as I can who are willing to fill one out.

Research Questionaire

Questionnaire:

Please fill in this questionnaire; it would be most appreciated, thank you. Circle the answer for you.

1. What gender are you?

· Male
· Female

2. How old are you?

· 5-10
· 11-14
· 15-18
· 19-21
· 22-35
· 36-50
· 50+

3. Which of the following attracts you to go and see a film, before it has been released?(circle two please)

· The Trailers
· The Poster
· Magazine publicity
· The Website
· The Reviews
· Television documentaries

4. What Genre of film do you prefer?

· Action
· Romantic
· Thriller
· Comedy
· Sci-fi
· Disaster

5. Where do you most often see a film trailer?

· Internet
· Cinema
· DVD
· CD
· TV

6. What is the most intense part of a ‘thriller’ genre film?

· The music/soundtrack
· The characters
· The graphic-blood, guts etc
· The build up
· Other (please specify below)



7. On a film Magazine cover what gets your attention?

· The font/ title
· The main picture
· The stories or reviews in the magazine
· The layout of all the pictures
· Other (please specify below)



8. On a poster for a film what gets your attention?

· The main picture
· The font/title
· The actors names
· The film companies name
· Other (please specify below)



Please write any other comments on any of the questions below or any comments on the topic of a thriller genre, thank you.