Planning and Production: Risk Assessment

Shot List

Script for Trailer

Script: After the pick-up in pace of music.

(cut the first 10 seconds of music)

1.       (10-25 seconds). Eyes waking up, lighting a candle and it flickering on her face, close up of the box

2.       (25-32 seconds) Men grabbing her, in candle light so it keeps flickering between dark and light. Punch to the face and fighting

3.       (32-46 seconds) MAN: “where is it?”, GIRL: “I DON’T KNOW”, MAN: *whispering sinisterly* “tell me before I separate your eyes from your skull”, now chocking her against something with his hand. *girl screaming and fumbling on under her pillow*, *pulls out a knife and stabs him*.

4.       (46-54 seconds) Girl looking down at her hand covered in blood, shaking, as she sits in a pool of blood, checking the box.

5.       (54-1:01) sitting on a horse back at sunset, holding the box and looking out at the world

6.       (1:01-1:08) her strapping all of her arms and legs up

7.       (1:08-1:23) montage of practicing to fight, training, riding etc

 As our video does not contain any full scenes; there are only clips of audio taken from different scenes. We have however written out all of the audience we want in our trailer. We have scripted this out as when we are filming we will have the actor’s mouth out these words and then later go back and re-record so that there was no background noise. This will not only help the actors but also when we are editing the video it will help us line up the audience and video.

PANDORA VOICE OVER: I’m sure you are familiar with your Greek mythology; there was a girl, named Pandora, created by the gods from water and earth. 

Zeus entrusted her with a box with the instructions of never to open it as it contained an evil that could destroy the world.

So if I were you I wouldn't be traveling these parts with such greed in your hearts, hunting for something you cannot possibly understand. You might end up dead.

ASSASSIN: Where is it?

PANDORA: I don’t know what you’re talking about

PANDORA:  This burden it’s too heavy

MALE: You’re strong, a lot stronger than your realise

Storyboard of Pandora's Box

Technical Equipment Needed for Filming

We will be filming our entire film trailer with a SONY Cyber-shot  DSC- HX20V camera. It has a long zoom and picks up colours very well so this allows the colours in our trailer to be nice and vibrant. It has multiple high definition modes which means out trailer will be sharp for the audience. It is small and compact which is great for travelling around with the camera, this is helpful because we will be filming a lot of our clips in the woods which means we will be moving around the trees, furthermore we are having a few handheld shots because of our theme, so having a small camera to hold but is still great quality is perfect for this filming task. 

This is a photo of the tripod we will be using, We aren't going to be using a tripod for all of our shots, however for the scenes that will be filmed inside, it will be a lot easier to use a tripod rather then trying to hold the camera still. We will also be using the tripod for any establishing shots. 

Location Planning

We thought about using many places for our filming location, we went to Lloyd Park which is relatively near to where we live and explored the woods in the park to try to find a good location. We found several patches of woods which would think would be good to film in.

As this is a public place we do not need to gain any permission to film here. We went towards sun set and this is the time we are thinking of filming to give it that eerie but not quite dark look. We had a go at filming some little segments just on our phones to see how the location would look on moving camera and were happy with the results.

Costumes and Props

PROPS

Probably the most important prop we will be needing in order to create our opening sequence is the chest or box we will be using for Pandora's physical box. We have looked online as well as in shops and found this one on Amazon. The measurements meet our requirements and the box is a unique and interesting design as well as looking fairly old, as the box was created by Zeus it would be very old. We may add extra distressing to the box once we have purchased it depending on what we think will look best within the trailer.

- We will need some kind of weaponry within the trailer which both the good and bad characters will be using. As our film is set in a mystery land which appears to be in the past, our actors will mostly be using weapons such as daggers which we can again buy on Amazon or in toy stores. The only issue we may have is we have to handle them responsibly as carrying around one in public, even if it is just a toy, can be seen as threatening and get you in trouble.

COSTUMES

PANDORA (older)

- The character of Pandora will have three costumes which she wears. The first will be her when she is in the wood and finds the box, so before she has to run away and protect the box. This will consist of some kind of rope-like dress. This is before she has to go through the hardship of survival in the woods, she’s is content and comfortable with her lifestyle and so her dress will reveal this. We will preferably use light colours for this costume to show that she is innocent and young which is what light colours connote. Her makeup will also be reflecting this, using natural and bright make-up which will make her appear younger and happier.

- The next costume she will be wearing is the one she will be wearing when she is at home and her house is raided by people hunting for the box, she will be wearing some kind of night wear, possibly a long white under dress type item. The white again connotes her innocence. When she stabs and accidentally kills one of the raiders she will get blood on her dress, the red will stand vividly against the white which will show that she is no longer innocent and is not contaminated as she is a murderer. 

- The last costume will be the one we see her in most which will be her "hunter-like" costume which she wears when surviving in the woods. Using the internet I have managed to decide what this will look like. We will mostly be using darker colours to represent that she is no longer innocent and young and has had to grow up into something which is threatening in order to protect the box. Throughout the trailer the outfit will get holes in and become distressed.This will show that she has been out in the woods for a long time and represent her fight for survival. Along with the costume her make-up will appear darker and therefore represent the dark-Gothic appearance of her character.

PANDORA (baby)

- Baby Pandora will only be in a little bit of the trailer but her costume is still important, she will be wrapped in white blankets in the woods when she is shown. The white represents that she is a good and pure child.

Character and Actor Profile

MAIN CHARACTER: Pandora

We will be following the description of Pandora from the original story and artworks which have been created of her. She is normally dark haired and fairly young meaning that our actress will have to fulfill these requirements. She is also known for being pretty and inquisitive as well as fairly wise and physically capable. We have decided to have a young adult/ older teen play her character as this is our target audience which also helps to create a bond between character and audience. 

CHOSEN ACTRESS: Katie Sexton

GENDER: Female

AGE: 18

HAIR COLOUR: Brown

EYE COLOUR: Light Brown

HEIGHT: 5ft 2

RACE: White British

We have chosen our friend Katie to fulfill the role of Pandora because she fits the requirements of the character. She also lives fairly near to us and has worked with us on media projects in the past which makes her a reliable and easy accessible actress. 

CHARACTER: Side kick

Although in the film Pandora's character is alone within the situation she has someone who helps her along the way from time to time. We have decided to have a character who was of a different race so that our film could not be accused of being racist and it also invites a wider range of audience members to view the film as they can connect with the character. The character must be kind looking and acting so that the audience can trust them and know that they are on the side of the hero within our film. We have also decided to have this character as a male so that there is an element of romantic interest and also so that one gender ground is not excluded. 

CHOSEN ACTRESS: Mufaro 

GENDER: Male

AGE: 18

HAIR COLOUR: Dark brown

EYE COLOUR: Dark brown

HEIGHT: 5ft8

RACE: Black

We have chosen Mufaro because he does drama a level and he is a good and reliable friend so filming with him will be calm and relaxed, furthermore he gets long with all of the cast so there shouldn't be any problems. He has also been involved in previous recordings we have done which means he know how we work and how to act when filming professionally.

CHARACTER: Assassin 

The assassin character will only appear in a small scene in which she attacks Pandora in order to attempt to steal her box. We have chosen for the character to be a female to challenge the stereotype that the bad characters in films are male.

CHOSEN ACTRESS: Becky Ward
GENDER: Female
AGE: 17
HAIR COLOUR: Red
EYE COLOUR: Hazel
HEIGHT: 5ft7
RACE: White


Becky will be playing the character of the assassin, this makes it easy as she will be present on all of the days we will be filming. She also knows the script the best so therefore she will be able to act out the part. she also know the other actors very well and therefore be able to cooperate with them when acting. 

Audience Cinema Research

We created a survey, using Survey Monkey, to find out different factors of audience and what they would want out of a movie. This research is intended to show how effective showing our trailer in a cinema would be and also the age and gender groups this applies to. Typically trailers are shown within cinema along side a film of a similar genre or director. This means that the audience watching the film will also find the films shown in the trailers appealing. 

Due to the use of more illegal downloading and streaming, people do not visit the cinema as much and therefore we would more likely promote our trailer through social media such as adverts before YouTube videos. 

Creating Animated Production Logos

Here is a slide share on how I created the production company video logo:

Editing of production company video logo 

Here is the final product:

Watermark Logo Design Ideas for Our Company Logos

These are the production logo's that have that I have created through Microsoft Powerpoint. I made a selection of five logos which meant that Becky could choose which logo she would like to use at the start of her trailer, however we furthermore asked a selection (15 people) of our target audience to choose what logo they liked the most which helped us to choose which two to use.  

I made them simple to read so that the audience members could identify with them easily, furthermore I tried to make them as fun as possible by creating the logos out of animals as everyone likes animals, this also creates a friendly welcome. For the third logo I made it out of the film tape because this has a strong relation to media and film logos. 

I believe that I have made these logo appear to stereotypically 'girly' so may change a few of them if I have time later on in my project. 

Lighting Mood Board

These two images show the types of lighting style that we would like to try and create for our trailer for 'Pandora'. Through the use of mise-en-scene, we will create this lighting style to support the genre of our film/ trailer. Mostly we will create these lighting effects on our movie editing software as we will be able to adjust the saturation of colours, brightness and shadows.

The first lighting style connotes feelings of unease and agitation for the audience which will will be trying to portray in our trailer as Pandora is a very mysterious character. 

Moreover I have included the second lighting style which is a lot brighter because when the clips of baby Pandora appear the lighting will be more friendly. 

In both pictures you can see a lot of mist which creates a sense of darkness and mystery especially in the first mood board, the mist is there to almost hide what is going on and to make viewers or audience members feel on edge as they wouldn't like to be entering places like these. 
Where as the second mood board uses the mist to portray a magical feeling as there are fantasy characters, for example; fairy's in the different pictures. 

Lighting, Sound and Editing

LIGHTING:

HIGH KEY – The lighting is bright and relatively low in contrast. The majority of our trailer will not be using this apart from scenes where we wish to emphasise the innocence of our main character. However, as the film is dark and has elements of horror it will be mostly dark and eerie.

LOW KEY – The lighting has much more pronounced shadows and dramatic contrasts. We WILL be using this type of lighting for our trailer as our aim is to create a scary looking setting as there are strong elements of horror within our trailer. I will create this on the video mostly using Movie Plus which is the editing software I use for editing, I will be editing the curvature and apply shadow filters to the already dark light frames.

COLOUR FX – Can include: Clod or blueish lighting (connoting cold or spookiness). Warm or yellowish (connoting comfort, eg- a beach or sunset scene), Black and White or Sepia. We may use the blueish lighting on parts using the effect options on Serif Movie Plus to make the scenes appear spookier.

EDITING:

CONTINUITY EDITING – Film sequences normally follow this type of editing so that time seems to flow in a natural and believable way. Cuts will only be used as this gives a real life effect to the movie. Continuity editing can also include “cross-cutting” which is where a sequence cuts between two pieces of action happening at the same time. But it still has to maintain the seamless flow of action. Within a trailer there is a lot of cross cutting between different scene and therefore a lot of editing will not follow a continuity structure but instead more of a montage editing structure.

MONTAGE EDITING – Opposite, the cuts are normally noticeable and do not represent the seamless flow of time. It can use juxtaposition of images to create contrast and a more artistic feel.

CUT – One image is instantly replaced by another without a viable transition. We will martially be using these as they are required for continuity editing.

CROSS-DISSOLVE – One image dissolves into another.

FADE-UP – An image fades in from black, we may be using a few of these between scenes as one at the beginning and between the production companies logo’s.

FADE-OUT – Fading out to black, like the previous we may use a few of these.

WIPE – One image replaces another, where the border between the image moving across or around the screen.

SOUND:

DIEGETIC SOUND – Sound that seems to be part of what is going on, on the screen. For example, thunder, cars, footsteps. We will be using for this birds and other forest noises which are part of the direct action. The biggest part of the diegetic sound will be the dialogue which we will write a script for.

NON-DIEGETIC SOUND – Sound that is not part of the action or what is going on, on the screen. For example a soundtrack, we will be using a soundtrack for out trailer alongside the diegetic sounds.

SOUND BRIDGE – Linking two scenes together by sound. For example we may use bird noises to link the production logo to the first shot of the forest.

SOIND EFFECTS – Sound which is added on top which is not dialogue and music. Sound is added during the post-production stage using Foley.

What is in a Conventional Film Trailer

*INSERT WORD DOCUMENT*

Research: Pandora’s Box

Pandora’s Box Research 

Pandora's Box is a legendary box in Greek mythology. It was carried by Pandora and contained all of mankind’s worst fears such as illness. In some variations it also healed many evil creatures like Gollum’s and Griffins and the Kraken like in that game Legendary. But anyway, one day Pandora was given a gift by Curiosity, and she opened the box unleashing all the evils inside. 

This is the basic story below. The expression is used when somebody starts something, usually troublesome, that cannot be stopped. Find the story in Greek Mythology. I'm surprised at your teacher's ignorance. Pandora opened the box given to her by Zeus after being told never to open it. When she did so, all the troubles in the world were released. 

After Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create the woman Pandora as part of the punishment for mankind. Pandora was given many seductive gifts from Aphrodite, Hermes, Hera, Charities, and Horae (according to Works and Days). For fear of additional reprisals, Prometheus warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but Epimetheus did not listen, and married Pandora. Pandora had been given a large jar and instruction by Zeus to keep it closed, but she had also been given the gift of curiosity, and ultimately opened it. When she opened it, all of the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome labor that mankind had not known previously, escaped from the jar, but it is said, that at the very bottom of her box, there lay hope. 

According to Hesiod Hope indeed stayed inside because that was Zeus’ will; he wanted to let people suffer in order to understand that they should not disobey their gods. Pandora was the right person to do it, because she was curious enough, but not malicious.

The myth of Pandora’s box has been fascinating people since ever, catching the imagination of countless artists, who created frescos, mosaics and sculptures depicting Pandora and the mythological elements. The myth itself though appears in many different versions; the most distinctive difference is that in some myths Hope does come out. The main purpose of the myth of Pandora though is to address the question of why evil exists in the world.

Market Overview research and Analysis of Results

This chart shows the ways in which audiences of different ages interact or watch the exhibition of films. It is split into age groups between 16 and over 55.  It shows the difference in the way different age groups interact with media, there is a definite change in some of the different forms of consumption as the chart progresses with age.

Teenagers are represented with about 25% of them consuming with films using online software such as downloading, streaming or piracy. This slowly decreases along with age until it only represents a few % of the 55+ age group. This shows that teenagers have more accessibility to download film, there may be many contributing factors to this. Teenagers have a lack of money and therefore would be less likely to spend this money on purchasing films, they also have less time (due to full time education) to go out and watch or record films. Teenagers also have a wider access and knowledge of the internet and so can easily access streamed movies. This means that trailers alongside films in cinema are no longer as effective and so if a film is aimed at a teenage audience it is more likely to now be advertised using social media such as adverts before YouTube videos or on sites such as Facebook.

This said however a large chunk of the teenagers (around 20%) in fact go to the cinema, this may be for socialisation purposes, to hang out with friends as it is a fairly cheep (around £8 a ticket) form of entertainment. The amount of people who go to the cinema does not change drastically over the progression of age. This may be because it is still accepted as an easy form of entertainment for all different ages of people.

Something else which stays fairly even throughout the different ages of people is the number of people who receive DVD’s. This may be down to it being an easy gift to give to people for their birthdays or Christmas presents for all age groups. Renting and buying DVD also stays fairly similar which shows that these are fairly regular ways of viewing film throughout different age groups.

Around 50% of 55+ year olds  view films through recorded TV, subscription TV or live TV. This may be to do with the fact that people retire soon after this age and so the majority of their day they have not a lot to do and so end up watching the films that are on day time TV. It is also assumed that they are not as familiar with the internet which is why a very low percentage of these people watch films via online sources.

This is important as our target audience interact with media through the internet, this means that our product will have to be accessible on these mediums, as it is very easy to just switch to another film while online compared to watching a movie in a cinema the trailer is specifically important in the success of the film as it shows off the best parts of the film and makes the audience want to watch the whole film. 

This chart shows why people tend to watch films. 76% of people said they watch films for pleasure and similarly 76% said they watched it for relaxation. This shows that films serve as a purpose to entertain but also make an audience relaxed. This means that overly complicated plots are not widely popular as they cannot make the audience relax whereas a simple movie will allow them to do so. This is something directors will have to take into account when creating their movie as the more effective a film is at doing these things increases its overall effectiveness.

Focusing these groups down on gender and age showed that more females watch films for relaxation and men for pleasure. This may show that women have more stressful life styles as stereo-typically they have to care for children as well as possibly work whereas men watch movies for pleasure to entertain them when they might otherwise be bored.

Throughout age groups the most popular overall was watching films for pleasure however the age group 55+ watched films for relaxation slightly more than for pleasure. This may also be down to lifestyle as older people get tired out more easily and therefore need time to unwind, whereas other age groups of people who are mostly all in education or work watch movies as a source of entertainment and pleasure.

The next most popular reason why people watched films was escapism, escaping from everyday life with around 62% of people agreeing with this. This is also a very good factor of movies to allow the audience to escape from their reality and enter a world where they no longer need to worry about their own problems. This is another technique used by many directors to create an effective film.  It is also proven effective as over half of the people questioned in this survey said they agreed with this.

The lowest % of people was people watching films because they were passionate for them with only 40% of people agreeing with this. In comparison only 18% of people over 55 agreed with this statement, this may be because they have less connection with modern films, for example, some people may be passionate for comic book films as they have grown up reading the comics, people over a certain age loose interest in these things.

  53% of people between 16 and 24 watch movies because they are passionate for them, this may be down to again the idea that they have grown up with such stories and therefore want to watch the movies. This is something we will have to take into consideration with our young audience. 

This means that for our trailer we will have to be creating a product that mostly evokes pleasure in the audience. Something they find interesting and entertaining as it will also be used for them to relax and unwind from school or stress from school. We will also be throwing in elements of escapism to really help the audience to escape from school and from the stresses of everyday life. This is especially important for our audience who will be going through exams and therefore need this element of escapism and relaxation. Using a story which is already well known may also evoke passion from the audience as they want to watch the movie adaptation of a timeless story which they will have heard about. 

This chart shows the % of people who enjoy watching certain genres of films. As you can see the most popular film genre given by the  people who were interviewed was comedy with 64% of people saying they enjoyed this genre. Although this I the highest, 64% is still not that high and so shows the massive variation people have in their favourite genre of films and what they enjoy watching. This is why film producers narrow down their audience to make it something which appeals for the people who mostly enjoy this genre. Although a teenage male may like a comedy, an older lady may not which is why the survey was then concentrated into different social groups.

This chart shows the concentrated genres of people who consider different film genres their favourites. The survey was broken down into males younger than 35, males older than 25, females younger than 25, females older than 25. Whether they were parents or not as their social class. Comedy still appears to be the favourite genre of all different groups of people which means if you were to pick comedy as your genre of film you would have a difficult time picking a specific audience group to focus on.

 For our genre of fantasy it was preferred by women who were not parents of a middle class background, this mean this is the group we will have to focus down on during our own research. Although this survey states that it is women over 35 who prefer this genre other surveys we have look at told us that it was younger women who preferred this genre and therefore we are going to have to look into this a lot more through focus groups and researching individual people.

As our movie will be dark fantasy and therefore contain elements associated with horror films we are going to be looking at horror film audience as well. According to this survey they are most popular with younger women, this is equally spread out depending on if they have children or not and they are again mostly middle class. This means we will be definitely focusing down on this audience as a focus point. 

HOW WE WILL USE THIS RESEARCH

This research supports our planning as we now understand fully what our audience would want to see within a successful trailer. It gives us a real incite into what we are dealing with when it comes to audience, how to attract them and interest them enough to make them want to watch the full movie and what they will look for content wise within the movie and therefore what elements of this we should present within our trailer.

General Survey Results - Evidence

Research: Audience Questionaire

Me and Becky created this questionnaire to give to our ideal target audience and got them to complete 15 and then we will collect the results from these which will help us to add certain things into our trailer. 

______________________________________________________________________

I have created a questionnaire to hand out to people to determine the type of audience my film trailer, and other media products, will be aimed towards.  I have used mainly closed questions so that I can analyse the results easily and create graphs and charts based on the results. The questionnaire is as follows:

Gender:

Male   [   ]     Female   [   ]

Age:

Under 10   [   ]     11 – 17   [   ]     18 – 29   [   ]      30+   [   ]

How often do you watch movies?:

Everyday   [   ]     Once a week   [   ]      Once a month   [   ]     Less than once a month   [   ]

Do you enjoy watching movies?:

Yes   [   ]     No   [   ]     Sometimes   [   ]

Do you enjoy watching fantasy/horror movies?:

Yes   [   ]     No   [   ]     Sometimes   [   ]

Does a film trailer influence if you watch a film?:

Yes   [   ]    No   [   ]     Sometimes   [   ]

Does an actor’s appearance in a film influence you to watch the film?:

Yes   [   ]     No   [   ]     Sometimes   [   ]

Does a film poster influence you to watch the film?:

Yes   [   ]     No   [   ]     Sometimes   [   ]

Which style of horror film do you find more scary?:

Realistic   [   ]     Fantasy   [   ]     Both   [   ]

Which is your favourite genre of film?:

_____________________________________

Where do you prefer to watch movies?:

Cinema   [   ]     At home   [   ]      Online   [   ]     Other   [   ]

Where do you find out about new movies?:

TV trailers   [   ]     Online trailers   [   ]     Magazines   [   ]     Cinema   [   ]

Do you read movie magazines?:

Yes   [   ]     No   [   ]     Sometimes   [   ]

Research: Our Ideal Audience Profile *NEEDS EDITING*

Research: Definition of Fantasy

Definition from Oxford dictionary: A fanciful mental image, typically one on which a person often dwells and which reflects their conscious or unconscious wishes:

The notion of being independent is a child’s ultimate fantasy

A fantasy is something you imagine, which might involve dragons, unicorns, an imaginary best friend or mythical creatures. If you live in a fantasy world, you're not worrying much about reality.

Fantasy is dreams and imagination. In a football fantasy league, you can create your own dream team. In literature, fantasy — a genre similar to science fiction — might include a story about a three-headed squirrel and a bionic aardvark that fall in love on a planet made entirely of strawberries. Romance can be fantasy, too, according to a Billy Joel song: "It's just a fantasy. It's not the real thing. But sometimes a fantasy is all you need."

Mind Map of Conventions *insert photo of mind map*

I have created a mind map of all the typical Fantasy film forms and conventions; from here I can adapt my initial ideas to match up with a Fantasy sub-genre. The mind map I have created is very basic and I have scanned it onto my computer to post here.

**insert photo of mind map**

Final Genre Choice

The genre we have chosen is Fantasy. Becky and I have had previous experiences with creating a fantasy genre product, therefore we have quite a lot of knowledge already about it. We believe that is is also unique to try to tackle reproducing this genre in a piece of coursework and therefore would like to take on the challenge. 

Research: Action Genre

The genre ‘Action’ was discovered in the 1920’s and was generally based around western films that included sword fight and chase scenes on horse-back. As technology has improved over the years, action films are always changing and new variations are starting to appear. In the 1960’s the first James Bond film was produced and has served an inspiration to a lot of action movies nowadays.  

Action films usually include a high level of energy which gets shown throughout the film. Action films tend to have a very large budget because it has to cover all to the costs for the stunts, costumes and props needed. There is non-stop motion, this keeps the viewer tied into the film, and there is furthermore spectacular rhythm and pacing created by the adventurous characters and mis-en-scene. Main characters often include two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes battling the 'bad guys’; this is all designed for pure audience escapism.

What an audience will stereotypically view in an action film:

•          Explosion
•          Gun Fights
•          Chase Scenes
•          Fist Fights
•          Natural Disasters such as (floods, tsunamis and tornado's)
•          Destructive Crises
•          Prison or Culprit escapes
•          Blood
•         A Victory

Some examples of Action Movies:

•        The fast and Furious sequel
•          James Bond
•          Die Hard
•          Batman: The Dark Knight
•          Indiana Jones
•          300
•          The Matrix
•          Avatar

Popular actors that known for their good acting in action films are:

•          Sylvester Stallone
•          Arnold Schwarzenegger
•          Jackie Chan
•          Daniel Craig
•          Bruce Willis
•          Will Smith
•          Hugh Jackman
•          Tom Cruise
•          Paul Walker