Second Day of Filming

Today went a lot more smoothly in terms of getting the indoor shots that we re-filmed from yesterday's shoot and the shots that we were unable to get. We made it down to Speke Hall and managed to get some clear shots of the planes taking off from John Lennon Airport. However, the only problem was that, after taking off, the planes would either bank around to the right or left which made it so that we were unable to get a shot of a plane flying directly overhead, (which is what we
initially intended). We are really happy with the shots that we filmed considering these circumstances and they should fit into the film really well once the colouring etc is edited. Below is the a couple of shots that we got today including the top one which we will most likely use in our trailer;




As you can see we cannot use the second clip for a altitude of reasons, such as: it is a private plane and our character is a 19/20 year old girl who probably wouldn't have this luxury and also it is way too fast to use in our trailer. The first clip however is much more suited and we will use this to show the transition of our character from Britain to Paris.

The Beginning of the Filming Process

The first location that we wanted to do filming at was Crosby, and as this is our first day of filming we set out to do quite a lot and ended up shooting everything that we wanted to get done. Although we wanted some of the shots to be dark and mysterious, the lighting was a slight set back as we had to experiment with torches and lamps etc. This is due to the fact that we filmed in a loft area after school when the lighting wasn't all that great to begin with. Due to these restrictions we have already planned another day to re shoot some more of these shots even though overall we are quite happy with what we shot today. The day planned is tomorrow (on a saturday), this is so that the light will hopefully not be an issue and will be much brighter as we plan to get down to crosby quite early and make a day out of filming. We also hope to travel to Speke Hall as one of our shots we want to get is of an airplane flying overhead. This is the perfect location as it is situated right next to John Lennon Airport and has a path that runs around the end of the runway, so hopefully we will be able to get the shot we need.

Horror Film trailer Inspiration

As we thought that our trailer would be an independent film, Zoe and I both are attracted to these films for their unique style and we are drawn to the fact that they all have an odd abstractness to them which is appealing. We decided to look at some unusual film trailers, after researching several others, to find inspiration for our own.
The first trailer that we looked at was for the Swedish film 'Let the Right One In'. The movie was filmed in the Swedish Winter months which instantly influenced the lighting and filters to blue and cooler tones to correlate with this. These tones are also linked with the horror genre, mostly to depict either clinical horror or unease. Our trailer contains one main character which certainly challenges the typical conventions of a film trailer as she will have no one to interact with, and in turn, this means that our trailer will have no dialogue to carry it to the end. Due to this, we will have to use sound to drive our trailer and build tension through the use of effects and an appropriate soundtrack. However, this is the case in the trailer for 'Let the Right One In', where it is heavily reliant on the use of sound to accompany the two child main characters, which is also a convention of this trailer that allowed us to gain inspiration from on how we should portray our child ghost throughout our own. The main section of frames that we really enjoyed from this trailer below, was the last scene of snow falling, without a soundtrack for the last 20 seconds and the only sound that can be heard is that of a shrill echo. The combination of the crescendo of the music previously and the text over the lasting seconds of the trailer is a very effective ending that grips the audience and a creative way to mystify the feel of the trailer, and keep the audience guessing. The final feature that stood out was the contrast of the deep, blood red title against the pale snow failing in a dark sky, which caught my eye and was the last thing to see before the trailer ended. The overall editing and flow of this trailer as well as these stand out conventions have given and influenced many ideas for our own trailer 'Lullaby'.


We then went on to look at the trailer for the renowned horror film 'The shining', directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1980. The trailer was just so strange and shocking that it was very rememberable which made this trailer very effective in catching our attention. The combination of the loud strange music, still frame of the elevator and the rising credits, builds a lot of tension and keeps the audience engaged and wondering what might happen. The unexpected entrance of the huge flow of red 'blood' at 0.55 is shocking and grips you to keep watching. It is also a very effective way of insinuating death, without actually physically showing a dead body or gore that is not suitable for younger viewing or giving too much away. We thought that this was clever, and we both wanted something shocking to have the same impact on the audience in our own trailer and so we may include a scene like this and use this as inspiration for a part of our trailer.

                           

Trailer Analysis: Let the Right One In

After looking at several different horror film trailers, we got inspired and decided to use certain components from the Swedish film 'Let The Right One In'. Below is the trailer for you to view and my analysis of each stage of Mise-en-scene, editing, sound and cinematography.

                          

The main features that really caught our attention was the use of fast jump cuts to build tension, the elongated ending of some form to close the trailer and the use of certain cool toned filters that we will add in during the editing process that we will interpret in our own way into our trailer for 'Lullaby'.

The Distribution of Film

I decided to some research in to film distribution as I wanted to get a background insight in to one of the important roles of post production of a film.  I did some reading on how films are distributed and who certain films are typically distributed by, to gain some background knowledge and to get me to think about who would distribute our film, as from our initial research I think that our film would be an independent film release and not a major motion, blockbuster film.

The process of distribution involves the releasing and sustaining of films in the market of media releases and is arguably one of the most important parts of the film industry as this is what captures the audience and essentially makes or breaks the films' success. Throughout Blockbuster (Hollywood) films, it is typical and nomad to see vertical integration taking place to advertise the films as this is the most effective way doing so. However, in the UK, distribution takes a different stance in trying to appeal to a more local market and marketing globally.
Knowing this I looked at the independent sector that is more suited to our film. In the independent sector vertical integration is more or less un heard of and occurs less often as they typically do not have the links with distributors long term, that blockbuster films have. Distribution in this area is mostly split into 3 stages;- licensing, marketing and logistics.

After finding this out I have came to the conclusion that the ideal situation is to sign a distribution deal with a reputable film distributor who will then take care of all the possible distribution channels: theatrical distribution, television, DVD's, video on demand etc. In the ideal situation, the distributor pays the filmmaker a decent advance and they then split the revenues after the distributor has recouped costs. This is known as Gross Adjusted Deal.