Planning

Initial Planning
Who will you be working with? Nick Jevons
Chosen genre and why? We started off planning a horror film trailer, we then realised that this would seem to obvious and wanted to challenge ourselves,thus researching into a niche market film genre: Film noir.
Target audience for your film? Our target audience are people who enjoy period drama, crime films and is aimed at a more intelligent appreciated audience who have a interest for the genre of film noir. Due to the themes and tones of the piece, plus the time period it is set in has made us aim our film at an older audience.
USP for film? The unique selling point for our film is that it is a film noir film and has a unique appeal due to it being in black and white and additionally the 1940s time period.
Producers of the film? We have chosen Elizabeth Avellan to produce our film as she is the producer of the successful film noir film 'Sin City'.
Distributors of film? We have decided to choose Columbia to distribute our film because they have not distributed a film noir film in a long time yet they have distributed some in the past such as 'The Glass Key' and therefore are experienced.

Synopsis of film

Our plot consists of a middle aged man who is in a well paid job, yet is forced to do escalating crimes by a dangerous man. He gets into a relationship with a femme fatale woman who double crosses him by being involved with the dangerous man. The film ends with him losing everything he has due to his ambitious increasing number of crimes and ends up ending his life.
MOOD BOARD
After research into the genre specific conventions of film noir it gave me some prompt ideas for my trailer and using Google images I was able to create a visual stimulus in which i could explore colour, costume, themes and text styles etc. This visual mood board was very helpful in seeing my initial ideas combine and see what compliments another. Here is my mood board below:

 

























ANIMATIC - STORYBOARD

Click here to view my animatic storyboard

I created this in order to give myself a greater insight into the pace of editing needed for my final product and also to apply music to get a full sense of the trailer before production.

SHOT LIST

shot one - A pan of the town

shot two - Canted mid shot of character Jack

shot three - Reverse mid shot of Jack walking in a multi-story car park
shot four - Mid shot of the character Jack smoking
shot five - Extreme long shot of character Jack walking down steps
shot six - Two shot of characters Jack and Elizabeth
shot seven - Close of Elizabeth's tear
shot eight - Two shot of Elizabeth and protagonist
shot nine - Canted mid shot of Jack's silhouette bringing gun upwards
shot ten - Close up of Jack washing blood of his hands
shot eleven - Low angle shot of Jack with his head in hands
shot twelve - Pan of an empty briefcase
shot thirteen - Long shot of Jack sat on steps
Title one - Dangerous Ambitions
shot fourteen - Canted mid shot of Jack's silhouette with gun to head
title two - Coming soon March 2011

RISK ASSESSMENT
We had to ensure that each one of our shots was safe. We made all of our actors aware of what was happening at all times and reassured them that they are safe to prevent our actors or nearby people feeling uneasy or unsafe. (Click table to enlarge)
 

LOCATION DETAILS

One vital part of the construction of my trailer is that i got permission and found suitable locations for my chosen genre and style. Below are the key locations i have used in my teaser trailer and why i chose them:

Jordangate car park

I used this location as it was dark and created allot of shadowing which links to the film noir style. It is a location that is dingy and helps convey the narrative, he has a briefcase meaning that he is possibly meeting someone in private.

Macclesfield town (sparrow park area)

We used this area as it has cobbled streets and old lampposts. This gives a very 1940's feel to the film which enhances the genre. This aspect of mise-en-scene (setting) was crucial in creating the time period and was a suitable location from our modern surroundings.

Leisure Centre car park

This location was used as it is obvious that it is a public place and helps convey the narrative through the idea of isolation.This was a large open space which gave us the opportunity to experiment with wide shots and different camera angle.

ACTORS LIST

Lewis Payne

In order to make our main character convincing we decided to choose Lewis as he is a theatre studies student and was able to play the character how we wanted him to. 

Naomi Tipton

Naomi is also a Theatre Studies student meaning she was a versatile actor willing to give full commitment to the role in order to make her character convincing.

Nick JevonsWe chose Nick, my partner, to play this role as we felt he had the mysterious look and was taller than the other characters which showed his authority immediately within the trailer.

  SCRIPT FOR DIALOGUE/TITLES/MUSIC
After researching into trailer scripts and looking at the script for 'The Tourist' in particular I realized that the script must include suggestions or reveal the plot line, this is key as if the audience have no clue to what the film is about it will put them off watching it. Whilst looking at the script for 'The Tourist' we depicted it into sections; voice over and characters. I then listed the amount of times each main character had some dialogue and realized that character relationships are revealed in the trailer. I took this and made sure our trailer revealed a relationship too; Jack and Elizabeth's. 


PURPLE - JACK (VOICEOVER)
BLUE - JACK (DIALOGUE)
ORANGE - ELIZABETH (DIALOGUE) 

I used to do jobs for fun

Turn people's pockets inside out

Give me the cash!

It was easy money
An easy lifestyle
I had everything I ever wanted

Until i met her
Why jack, why? 
She robbed

She cheated

I love you

She destroyed

And now,
what do i have?

No cash
No life

No choice

We decided on a first person voice over to show that the film is from the voice's perspective; Jack's. We used dialogue shots to show the confusion between who Elizabeth loves and her relationship with Jack. We felt a first person voice over had the feeling of diary being read out, as our character Jack takes his won life at the end we saw this as a perfect opportunity to be sections of text from his suicide letter.
The themes are clearly shown through dialogue and voice over such as money ("Give me the cash!"), relationships as mentioned above, ambitions as he says "I had everything I ever wanted" and loss as he finally says, "No choice". 

Music

During our planning we realised that the music is vital in creating the right emotion, anticipation and must be genre specific. We then used google to look for "Copyright free music" in which we found a very useful website: www.freeplaymusic.com

Free play music allowed us to chose music that had the right tone, mood atmosphere, instruments, feel that we wanted and had a huge range to choose from. 

We selected the 'Somber, dark' choice under the heading 'Feel' to get exactly what we want.

After scrolling through multiple pages we finally found the music for our trailer that fitted with the genre as well as not seeming to like horror.

Our music choice is very monotonous to fit in with the character Jack's life and gives a moody feel to the trailer and as it is not too varied in pitch and tone etc. it does not take away from voice over and dialogue and is not overpowering. We decided on this instead of the typical classical music used in film noir as we wanted to make it more contemporary and enjoyable for a modern audience.