Locations

We have taken into consideration all of the locations we are going to try and include, we want our trailer to be clean, crisp and to the point.
We have got different images, in which we are going to try and include at least three, if not more of these in our shots.
We are definitely thinking of having a dim streetlight in this, to show the 'weird atmosphere' within the trailer, and also different surroundings such as parks and lit shops. This would work better in comparison to a daytime shot, because people tend to feel safer in the day. By using a night-time lighting, a red light is created which gives the viewer connotations of danger, blood or threatening environment. Overall, this is more effective for me because by shooting at night-time because this fits in with our whole genre.
I think that the more locations we add the better, since trailers usually have lots of locations to keep the audience engaged in the trailer. during our filming sessions we are going to be collecting lots of film footage of different locations so that we have lots to work with even if we don't use all of it..
We selected a few that would seem more effective, such as the woods. The effect of the long and tall trees give effects of shadows which create a mysterious atmosphere. It also an be an area to become trapped.

We thought that using an empty car park is a good idea, showing emptiness. This could also show how the two eldest characters feel when they realise they cannot find their younger brother and sister.
This would be better than a car-park that is full, as this would take away the lonely feeling from the specific scene and the audience would feel more comfortable with this.
We are going to be filming in different lighting, although not dark. This will cause problems for the viewers as they will not be able to see the scenes all that clearly, lighting would be affected since the dull nightlife would not show brilliantly on screen as well as in daytime which is brighter and would allow more light into the lens.
Weather is also going to be another factor to consider, this will affect the audio and the way scenes will appear on screen. Lately weather hasn't been very good, with heavy rain and gales this would cause serious audio problems with the wind and the rain would make our shots blurry and not as clear as they could be.
To overcome this, we will be choosing our locations carefully in the correct weather and lighting conditions.

Filming Schedule

We had to choose our filming days carefully, although this was a lot easier than last year. Working in a pair has limited the amount of reliability on others, which is easier for us to work together and get things done. We also are lucky to have our actors within easy reach, since we are using my younger bothers and sisters for this, as well as locations around the area we live in.
We are going to be filming many different shots, so we have lots to work with and edit into our final trailer. We will be getting these shots

• Location shots in light and early evening
• Shots of each individual character doing their own thing
• Different shots on further action

As we both have our own occupations and responsibilities, finding time to film was hard considering these things were difficult to get out of. Also because we needed to film outside in some shots, this wasn't easy depending on the weather forecast. To overcome this, we both chose to do a Saturday during the day. For our first filming session we only did a few hours considering we had other commitments revolving around family. We filmed from 12pm-2pm, although it was only for a few hours, we got the first few scenes of our film finished.
We are setting our filming schedule as this for most Saturdays:

Saturday:
12pm-4pm
12pm-2pm

Any weekday after Sixth Form hours:
4.30pm-5.30pm
We are following this schedule from now on, although we may have to adjust times on some occasions depending on personal commitments.
We feel this works a lot better than last year, since we have each other to rely on without the hassle of waiting on others.

Film Poster and Cover ideas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have picked two different film covers and posters, I chose these because I thought that they both look as if they would work well in our genre.

The first poster 'The Box' includes the main character along with two others. I think this poster is good for layout and colour. we think this type of composition would be idea for our poster since we are thinking of having Madison and Cody on the front. We have expanded our ideas and we are now thinking of having them both on the front since the trailer will carry onto being a thriller/adventure film. They are both in search of their younger siblings whilst trying to battle evil. We think that this will work well because we want to show the team work two distant siblings can create. If we do take on this idea, we are going to use this type of composition and layout using Photoshop.

The second poster, 'Gone' has an unusual composition and layout. however, I find this intriguing because its different from all of the others. I don't believe we would use the shape of this though. I think we will stick to a basic cover size since we don't want to give too much away.
The woman on the front, looks perfect for our type of film and character, because she is in the centre shows she is the main character. I think if we used something like this for our main character 'Madison' I think it would work well considering her image and story. This will draw attention from our viewers and by using Photoshop to add effects and edit our image, we could create something based on this. I think this is strangely similar as the titles work well, 'The Taking' and 'Gone' are both forms of disappearance.

After considering both of these, I feel we will take on both ideas, they both include elements we are looking for to create a well polished poster and cover.

Costumes Ideas

 

 

 

Main Character- Madison

This is the profile of our main character, Madison. 

This shows how we have gathered our information and taken this into consideration. Firstly we were going to use the actors original names, but because we changed the accent, these names did not work well for what we wanted to achieve. Knowing that we wanted our trailer to be in a typical American style, we searched up the first ten 'typical' American names and took the first five that came up, we didn't spend a long time on this. We thought this name worked well since it also fit in nicely with the type of genre we are doing.

We chose the name 'Madison' in the end, we also think this was the closest to suiting her image.

Considering the background, we didn't add too much, but wanted an insight so that Emily (Actress playing main character) could get into her character and play her part well, making the trailer as believable as possible.

We chose to have her a suitable age, to babysit children but also isn't mature enough to take things around her seriously. We chose the age 16. This shows both sides of her personality.

She is an American, as we stated previously. Things worked better using the American accent, so we chose to do this. 

We noted her hometown and who she grew up with just to show a bit of background history.

We added in things like, her favourite colour,  what she loves to eat, her likes, and her dislikes. 

The main dislike we added at the end shows her parents are divorced, hence the reason for her actions.

We prefer to use her for an image like this, it gives a twist on the typical 'Scary thriller and vulnerable victim' since most of these genres have a victim that is considered 'useless' or 'fearful' and this could be predictable.

If we were to replace or improve anything, this would most probably be the hometown depending on what sort of accent she has, we will change this.

To conclude, we are happy with our main character and her profile.

Fonts and Title Ideas

These are ideas for our film title ideas, We started with our three original title ideas which were,

'The Taking'

'Left At Home'

'Abandoned'

Before we set our idea on 'Abduction' we had these three to choose from. We chose 'The Taking' Its quick, simple and easy to read. We wanted something with fewer syllables. Using the website, 'Dafont' We managed to choose from lots of different fonts to create our titles.

For 'The Taking' We first of all chose something that looked as if it was written by somebody else. We found this interesting to use.

for 'Abandoned' we chose something that was solid and very blocked. The blocked letters, give the illusion of a house or building. This is one reason we chose this type of font.

For 'Left At Home' the one that stood out the most was this font, which is sectioned on some letters. I found it gave a good effect with the sectioned areas.

After looking at these, we chose the best title to suit our plot. We chose to use 'The Taking.'

Using Dafont, we chose lots of different fonts to try them out and see what one we preferred. The one that striked me most, is the third one down. It looks scratchy and has an atmosphere to it. It looks as if a young child has scribbled  this. Which could relate to the younger children going missing in our plot and could be them. I also like the first one, which I can see suiting this type of film because its very simple and has an elongated effect like most thriller types have.

This shows we have two options to consider from.

Scripting For 'The Taking'

It took around an hour- to two hours to finalise the scripting for our trailer, 'The Taking'.

We have decided to base our trailer on an American mainstream trailer, this gives it a more realistic feel.

during filming we did try out two different versions of the voiceover, a British accent and  a standard American accent. Listening to both of these, we found that the American worked best for our genre and type of characters. We also asked our main actor what accent they feel best doing, they also said American.

We also added the sound of a clock ticking in the background, this portrays the characters regrets as time has changed the way she now lived her life. We have decided to keep the clock ticking as we feel it gives a good effect to the rest of the voiceover.

 

Our script is now in the vocabulary of the United States. We feel this will work well. I also thought we needed some American names for our characters in our script, so when the actors are performing, they will feel their character. The more they get into their character, the better they will perform so that we can capture this well.

Our script consists of three pages,

 

 

 

 

 

‘The Taking’

Characters:

Emily: Madison-Eldest

Conor: Cody-Second Eldest

Michael: Tyler-Younger brother

Holly: Zoey-Youngest sister

 

(Voiceover of Madison during the 8 quick

 

scenes)

 

Madison: “I find it funny how time passes; I always thought that bad things came to those that had broken the rules in life- I was wrong...”

“January 25^th, 2014 is when things changed. My family, I took for granted.. Something I regret. I suppose I learned my lesson the night my Mom went to work..”

 

Black Screen

 

Shot of the Mom walking into the living room

 

Mom: “Right, kids I’m off to work. Madison can you come here for a minute please?”Mom walks out to kitchen and Madison follows

 

Madison: “I’m supposed to be going out tonight?!”

 

Mom: “Stop sulking please, it’s only for a couple of hours. Help your Mom out a bit?” Madison grunts

 

Madison:“Well am I going to say to Aspyn?! We were supposed to be going out? I’m always the one to babysit.”

 

Mom: “Don’t start.” Mom walks off towards the door

“Be good, you two, stop fighting!”

 

2 kids come back out to kiss Mom goodbye

 

Mom: “I won’t be long.”Door closes

 

Black Screen

 

Pans of all watching a film

 

Slow pans of two children fidgeting and facial expressions show signs of boredom

 

Madison shows signs of frustration

 

Madison: "Can't you two just be quiet? I can't hear anything, if you're gonna be noisy go away!"

 

Tyler: “Were bored, can’t we just go outside?"

 

Zoey: “Pleaseeeee?”

 

Madison is on her phone, not concentrating on what’s going around her

 

Madison: “Yeah, if it shuts you both up!" Spoken in frustration

 

Shot of Children putting on hats and scarves

 

Cody:”Did Mom say that they were allowed out?”

 

Madison: “I dunno.. They'll be fine.” Cody has looks of concern on his face

 

Black Screen

 

Cody:“I think you should call them in?”  

 

Madison: “Yeah alright, I’ll go see, pause the film will you?”

Cody Pauses the film

 

Black Screen

 

Madison comes back in with fright in her eyes

 

Cody: “Where are they then, did you find them?”

 

Madison looks frightened and stares for a moment

 

Madison: “I can’t find them... I’ve been everywhere, around the block twice, down the road, up to the park… I can’t find them anywhere.”

 

Everything turns silent for a moment..

 

Cody: “What.”

 

Madison starts to panic and runs to grab her phone and puts on her coat

 

Cody: “Where are you going?!”

 

Madison: “I need to sort this myself. I shouldn't have let them out."

 

Cody: “Shall I call Mom?”

 

Madison: “No, I can sort this myself, Mom will go mad.”

 

Cody: “But-“

  

 

Madison: ”No Cody! I need to do this by myself.”

 

Madison slams the door shut

 

Black Screen

 

Phone starts to ring

 

Cody picks it up to answer

 

Cody: “Hello?”

 

Shot on Cody ^^

 

Muffled voice on other end

 

Madison: “I can’t find them” (Through crying)

 

Cody starts to feel sick

 

Cody: "Why?! You need to, we are going to be in so much trouble, they could be dead for all we know?!"

 

Cody starts to cry

 

Madison: "Don't say that! I will find them, I promise." (Through tears)

 

Shot on Madison ^^

 

Cody: "I think we should call the police.."

 

Shot on Cody ^^

 

Madison: "No Cody! If we do that-"

 

Madison breaks off and she starts screaming and crying down the phone, During this there is no sound of Cody.

 

Madison: "Cody?! Cody are you there?!"

 

Shot on Madison ^^

 

Shot of a walking shadow passing by house

 

Phone breaks off and "The other person has cleared..." is said.

 

Title of The Taking

 

Climax has been reached and trailer will end in cliff-hanger.

 

 

This shows the different conventions of the script, we hope to see this work well.