Diary - Initial Time Lapse

Following soundbites taken from filming our Initial time lapse:


Aims:
Test and film the time lapse plus any additional shots
Test camera's, location and and actress


- Arrived, looked at possible walls to use, front room wall agreed as best location, we kept the camera in the same position in the full 0.56 seconds of the teaser 
- Practising our time lapse whilst putting up the wall, camera adjusted to eliminate sockets and the bookcase from the shot
- Hannah (actress) is briefed, has a baggy white t-shirt for the time lapse
- Extra light is added, the wall should be clearer
- Time lapse started
- As well as the time lapse we've taken a few videos
- Time lapse finished, taken a few close ups
- Taken the wall down, reviewing time lapse
- Couple of shadows appear during the time lapse, suggested we can edit alternate shots in
- Job well done, will be uploaded soon


Improvements for future filming:
Mise En Scene not right, should be more dirty, grimy
Actress should wear grey or darker colours then white- because white is symbolising death 
Make sure no shadows get into the frame during the time lapse

Initial Time Lapse.

Here is our initial time lapse, again we will shoot with a Canon 5D. However, we will not be using this in our trailer because we feel that there are a lot of changes that need to be made. For example, costuming - after watching this time lapse we don't feel that the right image is being bought across from the plain white t-shirt. We originally decided on this because it gives portrays the idea that this young girl is lacking in identity, however we now feel that a colour such as grey would be more fitting or if she was in a hospital gown. Not only this we feel as though the wall is too clean, that it should have more character - maybe tiling or very dirty, well used white wall, creating more of an atmosphere. As well as this, when watching the images back we became aware that there is unfortunately movement of shadows across some of the images from movement behind the camera. Nevertheless, this time lapse is a very good idea of what the girl (Eva) would be writing on the wall and the concept that we are going for.

Setting up Time Lapse

Here is a time lapse of us preparing for shooting the initial time lapse for the trailer. We are putting up the white wallpaper on the wall, this was also to check that the time lapse worked and the camera was set to shoot at the correct intervals. The photos are taken with a Canon 5D.

The Board!

We are going to use two of these mdf boards - this will 

re-create the wall we used before.  And we think these

boards will be big enough to cover the camera shot.  

The vinyl lining is going to go on top. 

New Idea

Our original idea for the film was to have a plain white wall creating a time lapse with the girl writing various things.  However we have a new idea, we've decided to use 2 large mdf boards (sourced from the art department) with vinyl tiles to recreate the picture shown above.  We will make the mise en scene bleak and grimy with a battered and bloody look.  This will make the background more suitable to the image we want to convey and make it more fitting for the genre and situation we want to display.

We could not however put this into practice as we could not afford to do this. If we had a bigger budget, working on the mise-en-scene for the teaser trailer would be what we would concentrate on, creating this tile effect and this would reminiscent of a hospital or mental institute.

Institution

                                       

We decided to include an ident in our teaser trailer to make 

it look more realistic.  Having the company shown can be important because it can 

symbolise what the film may be about,  If the company shown was Twisted Pictures, the audience

would automatically think it was a horror with lots of blood.  So we did some 

research, our first thoughts was doing 

Cross Creek Pictures

This company is an independent film production and

finance company.  They recently made BLACK SWAN co financed and produced

with FOX.  They have various genres but all have powerful story-lines.       

20th Century Fox  is a mass film company working with many 

various genres; comedy, horror, romance, action. 

 Overall we have decided upon using these two companies 

because we feel it will give our film uniqueness from the global reach Fox give

us, to the hard, gritty stories that Cross- Creek Pictures put out. 

Typography

Different typography's in video form - Click here

Idenity Deconstruction

This is a deconstruction of the film poster Identity, this is very useful to our research because this film like ours is to do with Schizophrenia.

Narrative Theory

Claude Levi- Strauss- Binary Opposition

Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values, which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be good and evil – we understand the concept of good as being the opposite of evil. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. Binary Opposition states that there are a ‘pair of terms or concepts that are theoretical opposites.’ and therefore one cannot be there without another.

Tzvetan Todorov 

Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction.

Syd Field- The Paradigm

He came up with the idea of the three act structure, it is the idea that a film must be set up within the first twenty to thirty minutes before the protagonist experiences a 'plot point' that gives the goal that must be achieved. Roughly, half the movie's running time must then be taken up with the character's struggle to achieve the goal: this is the 'Confrontation' period. Field also refers, to the 'Midpoint', a subtler turning point that happens at approximately in Act II, the Confrontation that often has an apparently devastating reversal of the fortune for the main character. The final quarter of the film depicts a climactic struggle by the protagonist to finally achieve the goal and the aftermath of this struggle.

Vladimir Propp- Narrative Theory

He concluded that all characters could be put into 8 character types:

   1. The villain — struggles against the hero, creates narrative disruption.

   2. The dispatcher —character who sends the hero off on the task

   3. The helper — helps the hero in the task to restore equilibrium.

   4. The princess or prize — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain. Sometimes also seen as a victim, the character most threatened by the villain, and has to be saved in the climax by the hero.

   5. Her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. His role is usually to give the princess away to the hero at the narratives conclusion.

   6. The donor —prepares the hero or gives the hero something, which helps in the resolution of the narrative.

   7. The hero— Who is usually make, restores the narrative equilibrium by taking on the task, saving the princess and winning her hand. The hero is the protagonist or the central character.

   8. False hero — appears to be good but takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

This theory is based on traditional texts, however these character types are transferable to modern day texts as well. 

Black Swan Trailer Deconstruction

This is a trailer deconstruction of Black Swan, this new way of deconstructing is more interesting and easy to look at when and where things are placed such as fade outs.  We can also see how disequilbrium is important during trailers as this gives more suspense.  Suspense is created throughout this trailer by the orchestral music played with deep violins.   

Time Laspe

From the off, the group has always liked the idea of using time lapse in our trailer - not just because it is a great effect, but because it is unusual in teasers. The effect of time whizzing by is great, and is one we feel would work well in our trailer, in particular, time lapsing the girl writting on the wall, which will show how she has been writing on her wall for a large amount of time. We want it too look smooth, so will film our trailer in 30 f/s and will show between 10 and 20 seconds of time lapse footage, so will need 300-600 photographs for the timpe laspe to flow.

Some inspiration and examples of time laspe are show below:

This is a first draft musical piece we made, the piano we thought needed to start softly to show the innocence of the little girl in our trailer but get built up as we are not shown her face and see what she has written on the wall. One of the limitations of this piece is that it is not long enough for the one minute trailer and it does mostly include the piano as we thought it complements the trailer the most.

Black Swan Website

This is one of our favourite website designs as the layout is simplistic with Natalie Portman (main character) duplicated, the image has an minor effect with it moving slowly side to side.  Clips of the film is playing on top of the main page when you click on the 'Black Swan' title.  Reviews are put on the website (as shown on her back) this entitles the audience to know how the film is and of course the quotes shown will be all positive with one or few powerful words which remain memorable.  A link to another option is created by a fade in transition.  People who visit the website can have a choice either to 'turn on' the music or 'off.' Showing they have the audience in mind.

The main website covers majority of the screen, with a black background and shots of the actual film.  Links to Facebook and Twitter demonstrates the movie likes to have interactivity with their audience, this way, the movie gets to have a greater level of feedback from different sorts of people all over the world. 

This screenshot is illustrating how the film incorportes a short clip of the film with a 'skip intro' tab so it is not compulsory to watch the zoomed in clip.  however it does give a nice insight to what is included in the film.  

Quite long descriptions of the cast and crew is included, this shows how good the actors are within the Black Swan. 

It can also be an attractive trait to audiences to make them watch the movie because they maybe watch films for the actors.  Artistic imagery  

is used as the background to show the elegance of the theme which is all to do with ballet but contrasting with the black to illistrate there is a dark element within Black Swan.    

The website is very easy to navigate from page to page as you don't have reload the whole webpage.  We would like to incorporate this style into our own website as well as how the image is shown- whereby it covers the majority of the screen.  This way, it will be more eye-catching to audiences, keeping them more focused and interested.

Editing Techniques

These are some of the techniques we are looking to use in our trailer.

CUT

A visual transition created in editing in which one shot is instantaneously replaced on screen by another.

DISSOLVE 

A gradual scene transition. The editor overlaps the end of one shot with the beginning of the next one.

FADE 

A visual transition between shots or scenes that appears on screen as a brief interval with no picture. The editor fades one shot to black and then fades in the next. Often used to indicate a change in time and place.

JUMP CUT 

A cut that creates a lack of continuity by leaving out parts of the action.

ERRORS OF CONTINUITY

Disruptions in the flow of a scene, such as a failure to match action or the placement of props across shots.

Questionnaire

Please can you fill in our questionnaire on Schizophrenia which is our theme for our teaser trailer.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QTHTSYQ 

Thanks :)

What Makes An Effective Teaser Trailer? - Symbolism

Exactly, what DOES make an effective teaser? A good trailer - regardless of genre or media type has to be remembered. Teasers do exactly what they say, the tease the audience in an attempt to get them to find out more, and to get them to watch the film. Unlike a theatrical trailer, teaser trailers do not give much away about the film in an obvious way, you have to really dig deep to find meanings. Looking at the video game trailer of 'Hitman Absolution' we see symbolism used greatly, as this 5th feature in the series, fans (the people likely to see the trailer) will be able to distinguish the meanings.  Firstly, we see a shadowed man , putting a silencer on his gun. In the next scene we see a handgun, know by fans to be 'ballers' with the agency logo displayed. The gun is surrounded by a snake, which represents danger, but also stealth and silence, the qualities of an assassin. Finally we are shown the most effective symbol, and also the most recognisable, the trademark barcode, ending in 47 (shown red), this instantly tells the audience that the trailer is about Agent 47. Although only three clips have been shown, the audience is engaged, and left wanting more. The audience will then go to the web address displayed.

The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer is also a good example of symbolism in teasers. After the idents are show, we hear and see memorable extracts from the first film, along with 'Every journey has a beginning', shortly followed by 'Every journey has an end'. This immediately has the audience engaged, and they then hit us with 'From director Chistopher Nolan', which tells the audience that this film will be just as spectacular as the last two. The loud motorbike is then contrasted with new footage of commisioner Gordon, in hospital murmuring. You then see the camera ascend, followed with Gordon mutter the word 'rises' and a man climbing out of a hole. this is a symbol of what is to come in the film; batman rising over evil to inevitably defeat it. Images are then flashed periodically of Bane, the villain of the film, followed by the camera rising upwards toward the Batman logo, which could be perceived as Bane rising to face batman, as a clip of a large shadowed figure (Bane) facing batman is shown, which ends the trailer with the title 'The Dark Knight Rises'.

Photography

We also researched into another form art, photography. We found the documentary photographer Kris Allan who spent several years shadowing musician, actor and charity founder Devon, who has Schizophrenia.


Devon preparing for and receiving his all important his fortnightly injection of Depixol from his community psychiatric nurse, at home.

                    Devon walks the corridors of Springfield hospital.

The local chiropodist treats Devon's feet.

Devon prepares to have his injured arm examined at the hospital.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

We thought that it was important to research into literature that would be relevant to Schizophrenia and 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the novel that we felt linked very well to our story line. This novel was first published in 1886 and Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and experiments reveal his evil side, named Mr Hyde. This novel is great inspiration for our film trailer, because it clearly represents the inner conflicts of humanities sense of good and evil and the duality of human life. It also links the psychologist, Freud and the Freudian theory that the thoughts and desires banished to the unconscious mind motivates the behaviour of the conscious mind. A bible quote that was linked to this novel is, “Now if I do what I do not want to do it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me that does.” This quote really inspired us for our trailer, because we thought that it could really represent the idea Schizophrenia, and that the actions that the character makes aren’t of her own choice. This quote will be shown in the trailer to demonstrate this to the audience. There have also been many film adaptations of this novel, 1931 directed by Rouben Mamoulian, 1941 by Victor Fleming and lastly, the 2008 version by Paolo Barzman.

'A Beautiful Mind ' Website Deconstruction

A Beautiful Mind  is interactive as you are going through links which is entertaining for the audience.  You are able to play games which test your mind - links in with theme of the film.   Even though the film is not horror related we like the features created on the page.  This gives us a clear indication of what tabs to put on our own webpage. 

Website Deconstruction

We've done deconstructions of High Tension and A Beautiful Mind - the websites.  We thought High Tension isn't as interactive as we would have liked because the image is very striking and effective however the features aren't great. 

Draft Storyboard

High Tension

High tension, It stars Cécile de France as Marie. The protagonist, a college student who attempts to save her friend from a brutal killer before the ending reveals that she is really the murderer. Her motive seems to be her desire to be alone with Alex. Marie has created a separate persona (the psychopathic killer) in her mind who murders the victims.

Symptoms of Schizophrenia

We researched into the symptoms and signs that a person has schizophrenia, we picked out a few that can be incorparated into the trailer:
·  Depression
·  Social withdrawal and isolation
·  Deterioration of social relationships
·  Dropping out of activities and life in general
·  Deterioration and abandonment of personal hygiene
·  Excessive writing or printing without apparent meaning

·  Inability to express joy

·  Not blinking or blinking excessively. Staring

·  Bizarre behaviour (hopping, wearing only torn clothing, applying strange make-up)

These symptoms can be shown in our trailer through a variety of ways through messages on the wall and the way the character is shown. These symptoms were drawn up from some one with real life experience along with other real life cases. Other symptoms include:

·         Excessive sleeping or inability to sleep for long periods of time

·         Shift to unusual behaviour; significant personality change

·         Hyperactive or inactive

·         Inability to concentrate or cope with minor problems

·         Extreme religiosity or preoccupation with the occult

·         Decline in academic or athletic performance

·         Accidents or self-imposed injuries (cutting oneself)

·         Drug or alcohol involvement with extreme or dramatic reactions

·         Forgetfulness and losing things

·         Devastated by peer disapproval

·         Noticeable and rapid weight loss

·         Attempts to escape through geographical changes; frequent moving or hitch-hiking trips

·         Excessive need for acceptance

·         Inappropriate laughter

·         Irrational statements

·         Strange posturing
·         Refusing to touch anyone or certain things

·         Shaving head or removing body hair

History of Horror Timeline

We made a timeline showing how genre has changed from the 1930’s till now.  In the 1930s films such as Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein played by Boris Karloff.  If it weren’t for Frankenstein the whole horror genre would be different.  The audience was drawn into a feeling of sympathy for the monster.  For the first time in history, the lines between hatred and sympathy were blurred when discussing a creature that was made of nightmares. To this day, this is a common aspect of many horror movies.  The audience saw a creature for the first time that was close to human, but distinctly foreign and, “misbegotten by God.”  This was the era which brought out fictional monsters and had mad scientists.  

In the 1950's, B movies were made, this is when drive in movies were all the rage.  Films were more to do with aliens and related to science.  Smell O vision was introduced during this era whereby tubes were stuck under your seat – smells of garlic, smoke etc., matched the images on screen. 

This is a deconstruction of 'A Beautiful Mind,' there will be more deconstructions of posters, this will give us more thoughts and ideas for how our own film poster will look like.  

Schizophrenia - Professor John Nash

Professor John Nash, (born 1928) won a nobel prize in 1994, but has a had a life long battle with his diagnosed schizophrenia. John Nash showed signs of paranoia and that his delusional thinking was due to unhappiness, his strive to feel important and be recognised.  He did not hear voices until 1964, later rejecting them, gradually on his own. John Nash had (and is still having) such an interesting life, that in 2001, the film 'A Beautiful Mind' was published about John Nash, which went on to be nominated for 8 oscars, and won 4, including best writing and best picture. John Nash claimed it to be accurate, with the exception of hearing voices. We intend to explore the themes further, and take inspiration from the high acclaimed film.

Our Group!

First post of the project. The team (Alex, John, Shrims and Marcus) are ready to get the project, called "Cause Unknown" off the ground.  Our blog will include everything we have done such as; background research for our teaser trailer, deconstructions of various posters, websites and trailers all relating to themes for our teaser.  We shall also be settting up a twitter account, facebook page and flicker so that everyone keeps checking our blog regularly!
And of course you will all see our finished product. :)