Thursday, 16 October 2014

Inspiration for our trailer

Law Abiding Citizen


This video is a clip from a crime drama thriller. It is about a man who decides to take justice into his own hands after his wife and child are brutally murdered and raped. The court set his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.

By looking through the start of the film i would like to incorporate some of these ideas in our film trailer. For example the start of the clip is very similar to the way we would want to start our trailer. I like the opening scene where is begins in the house where you think everything is normal until a knock at the door when people force the door open and push there way through the main character. 

As you can see from the table below the film law abiding citizen did considerably well in the box office. And in the first opening weekend had already made £1,488,143. This is because of the action and crime that is twisted within the film. 

Gang member tattoo ideas

When thinking of our trailer ideas we thought that it would make the trailer interesting if we used gang tattoos. This would be useful in our film because the hitman kills the gang member (Jerome) as then realises that he is part of a gang member because the hitman sees a tattoo on his arm, which is the symbol of the gang.
These are some ideas that we came up with for the tattoo:



Treatment for movie trailer

Production company name- insignia 

Team members- Claire, Eve and Megan 


Genre- crime thriller 


Synopsis- A normal boy attends college but is secretly a hit man and he reicives a large sum of money if he kills someone. He kills the man but then realises later that he is part of a gang. In revenge the gang members kidnap the hitman where the hit man must plan his escape.


Detailed narrative outline-A house is broken in to by a gang member, in the process a woman is attacked and injured with bruising around her neck, he steals some of her possessions and leaves her mentally scarred and alone cowering in a corner crying. A young 18 year old boy attends college however he feels socially excluded and doesn't have any friends. He receives a phone call while he is at college from his boss saying 'I have another job for you' and offers the largest sum of money he has ever been offered (£100,000). The boss wants him to murder the person who has attacked his wife. The boy accepts and follows the individual down an alley way and shoots him before he can defend himself. As the hit man approaches the body he sees a gang symbol/tattoo on his arm. The gang later realises one of their members have been killed and they want to seek revenge by tracking down the hit man and kidnapping him. He wakes up in a dark, basement room and must escape before they kill him in vengeance. 


Intended target audience- Both male and females from all social classes are our audience and also the age range will be 15 +, this is because we do not want to stop people from watching it because they are not a certain gender or age it just depends on taste. But is rated a 15 because the violence will not be suitable for anyone under. 


Key characters-


  • The hitman - aged 18    Wayne 
  • The victim - aged 18     Jerome 
  • Gang members - between the ages of 17-21   Roxie, Dominick, Reagan 
  • The boss - aged in his 30s/40s
  • The boss' wife - also aged in her 30s/40s
Mise-en-scene: 
  • Costume - dark clothing, smart black jacket, balaclava, leather gloves, gang tattoo 
  • Props- gun, mobile, rope, tape, blind fold, knife 
  • Lighting - mostly low key lighting to portray the mystery to ultimately thrill the audience

Location: The film trailer will be set locally in Birmingham. We will use at least 3 locations to keep it interesting, this will include; Plantsbrook School, an alleyway and a basement or dark room. These locations are important are you can get the feel for the trailer and it becomes more suspense. 

Monday, 13 October 2014

Key scenes

1. Breaking into the house, wife getting assaulted 
Our first key scene is taken from the beginning of the narrative when a young hooded, masked teenager (Jerome) breaks into a house.  He forces his way into the Boss' house, however he does not know who lives there or the Boss' authority, the Boss' wife is home alone and gets pinned up against the wall by her neck. Jerome will be armed with a knife and be dressed in dark clothing with black gloves, he grabs anything he can which could be worth some value. He leaves the wife half unconscious and cowered in a corner where she is crying and shaking with fear. The scene will then jump forward to the boss phoning the hit man, telling him that he needs him to complete a job.

Shot list


  1. Establishing shot of the house in the evening/ night time with voice over of phone call between the wife and the boss 
  2. MS of the boss' cooking dinner
  3. ECU of the flame
  4. CU on the pot over flowing
  5. MS of her getting quite stressed trying to turn down the heat
  6. LS of her trying to sort the mess, the doorbell rings
  7. Tracking shot following her feet
  8. POV shot of her walking towards the door
  9. Over the shoulder shot of Jerome pushing the wife back
  10. Two shot of her looking away and Jerome being in her face
  11. CU of Jerome punching her in the stomach
  12. Long shot of the wife sliding down the wall in pain
  13. POV and long angle shot from the wife's perspective watching Jerome steal possessions which is blurry and fades in and out to show half consciousness 
  14. Canted angle to create a feeling of disorientation 
  15. BCU to show Jerome's face looking behind him ensure no one has arrived 
  16. LS of Jerome crouching down the wife's level 
  17. MCU of Jerome lifting her chin and her pulling her face away
  18. Shallow focus of the wife in the foreground on the floor resting against the wall and Jerome's feet in the background heading for the front door
  19. POV shot from the wife's perspective watching him leave
  20. CU and pull focus of Jerome's face walking away, walks out of the frame, so the audience can see the house behind with the door left wide open




2. Kidnapping of the hit man (Wayne)
After Jerome was killed by the hit man, the gang members want to seek revenge. The scene begins with Wayne (the apprentice hit man) walking down a narrow alleyway, two gang members approach him from in front and as he begins to turn around another approaches from the other side. They put a black cloth bag over his head and throw him in the boot of a car. He is then shown to be in a dark, cold, damp room with his mouth taped and his arms roped behind the back of a chair with a torch being pointed at him. It leaves the audience asking the question of whether he escapes or not; like a cliffhanger. 

Shot list 


  1. Establishing shot of wayne walking down the alley
  2. POV shot showing the gang members approaching wayne
  3. OSS from behind the gang members
  4. CU of wayne looking worried and glancing behind him 
  5. MS of other gang members walking towards him from the other side
  6. high angle shot looking down on wayne and the group
  7. CU of wayne's face and the black bag being thrown over his head
  8. POV shot from wayne's perspective showing the darkness ( the screen goes black but can hear the gang members talking about getting him into the boot of the car)
  9. Wide shot of the boot opening 
  10. Wide shot from a side view showing wayne being thrown into the boot
  11. CU of wayne pulling off the bag from his head 
  12. POV shot from wayne's perspective looking up from the boot and seeing the gang members closing it. 
  13. Establishing shot with pan from behind wayne tied to a chair with his mouth taped 
  14. ECU of wayne's eyes 
  15. CU of light being directed at wayne's face 
  16. Tracking shot following the gang member with a knife 
  17. ECU of the gang members hand carrying the knife with full focus
  18. MCU of the gang member pointing a gun at wayne's head

Thursday, 9 October 2014

Names Ideas



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These are the names that we have come up with for our film trailer. We narrowed the names down to default, omission and infraction. So we went round our target audience and asked them which film name they prefer.

Results     Score

Default         4
Omission      1
Infraction     5

Infraction had the most votes so our trailer is going to be called infraction which fits with our genre or crime thriller.

Survey monkey

These are the questions we asked on survey monkey and the results we got back. We also gave an option at the end of the survey for anyone to comment what they would improve and what they like about the ideas. 








Film trailer ideas

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Me Claire and Eve came together to share our ideas and to see which one of ours we liked best and what we could include from others ideas. However we couldn't decide which ideas was best so we have made a survey on survey monkey and let people in our target audience see which idea they prefer.

Analysing A- Level film trailers

We looked at an A- level film trailer and analysed the strengths and weaknesses about it. it helped me understand what makes a good trailer and a bad trailer and also gave me ideas to include in my trailer.Displaying photo 1.JPGDisplaying photo 2.JPG

Thursday, 2 October 2014

My final idea to put forward for further analysis

After getting together our group found that we would get better feedback from our audience if we used our best idea each, upload them to twitter and Facebook and get our target audience to make a decision on which idea they prefer and when we have expand and incorporate other ideas with it. We are creating a survey to upload to a social media website the survey will include these questions.


  1. Are you male or female
  2. How old are you?
  3. Which idea do you find the most appealing
  4. Would you add or change anything from your most preferred idea 


Idea

My idea starts with a group of girls who have been brought together by an unknown supporter. This supporter is always hidden and never shows there face. The supporter has made it clear that they would like them to rob a bank, they have come up with blue prints and have already planned out what they need to do and how they are going to do it. They haven't said who they are or why they are doing it but if they do rob the bank they get £500,000 each however they can walk out the room now but they can never come back. The story in particular follows one girl who comes from a background of poverty her mum is a drunk and she has a younger sister. Flashbacks show back to when she was living there and what it was like. The trailer shows the heist happening with all the action and how close the girl is to getting caught. However she makes it out alive and send the money to her sister back at home through a package in the post. on her way back from the bank heist she is on a train and sees a girl she knows from the heist, she is then shot and the girl walks off with what she thinks in a black sports bag with the £500,000 in