My Coursework Report
For my MS2 pre-production I worked in
a group of two in order to produce a trailer for a thriller film “Locked”. The
targeted audience for my film are teen audience in the age range of 16-25 years
old. The trailer I produced therefore uses actor in this age range, meaning
that the audience can relate to them and so be more engaged in watching the
production. In addition, I also used a high number of elements that portrayed
the idea of an unordinary happening to ordinary people, in everyday situations.
Before commencing with my
production, I used a wide range of planning techniques in order to allow me to
meet all of the conventions that a thriller trailer contains. In order to do
this I created a ‘bowl’ on “Pinterest”, where I stored all my ideas and
suggestions. These included, a range of already existing, successful thriller
trailers, such as ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘The Boy Next Door’, which I watched,
analysed and that later allowed me to pick out specific techniques that are
used throughout all trailers of this genre making them appealing and
interesting. This includes a high number of fades to black between the
different scenes showed, as well as low-pitched music and voice-overs that help
to increase the tension created.
In addition, I also created an
account of the characters that I wanted to use in my trailer. As the target
audience for my project were teenagers, I made sure to use actors within my
trailer that were of the teen age. This therefore, meant that the audience
would be attracted to watch the production, as they would be able to relate and
associate with them, by being familiar with the situations that they are in as
well as the language that they use. Creating the character account allowed me
to become more familiar with the characters and so establishing their role
within the film. It also made an easier job for the actor, as they knew exactly
what kind of character they should be playing in. this further helped me to
make the scenes look more realistic and natural.
Moreover, in order to help
furthermore plan and organise my work, I produced a number of pre-production
artefacts. These allowed me to generate together all my ideas in an organised
way, so that I could later use them as a guide when it came to the actual
production. As my artefacts I created both, a storyboard, which involved the
images and descriptions of the key scenes as well as, a script for the opening
scene of “Locked”. In order to do this, I used the website “celtex” to help me.
This is because the website provides templates for storyboard and scrip
writing, which helped me to ensure that everything I did was in the correct
format and to the best standard possible. When creating the storyboard, I took
photographs of the main scenes that I wanted to include in my trailer, placed
them on the page in the correct order and included a description of what will
be presented in the scene during the actual trailer. However, if I was to do
the task again in the future, I would make sure to spend more time on the
storyboard and include much more detail about the camera angles used and the
effect that they would create.
As I worked in a group of two, in
order to create the trailer for “Locked”, me and my friend, Raimonda had to
make sure that we equally divided our roles in order to make sure that each of
us played an equal role in the production of the moving image. Therefore, my
main responsibility was to edit the clips; however, I also helped Raimonda with
the recording of the scenes. Raimonda on the other hand, was responsible for
creating the soundtrack for the trailer as well as producing the credit notes,
to add at the end of the video.
In order to edit all the clips into
one flowing piece, I used the Apple programme, iMovie. I decided upon using
this software as I was already familiar with it, due to using it for my
previous media coursework, and so it allowed me to quickly and easily proceed
with the editing.
During the editing part, I found
myself cutting a lot of the scenes, which I had gathered in order to ensure
that not too much of the content was revealed and so that only the strongest
parts of the production were included. Moreover, as I mentioned previously, I
also included a lot of fades to black between the scenes. I did this, as during
my planning I was able to identify that in all thriller trailers many of those
were used. As an example, in the “The Boy Next Door” trailer, as a class we
were able to identify as many as 13 fades to black just in 1 minute of the
trailer. This editing technique allowed me to create tension in the moving
image as it crated a cut off point for the scene, connoting to the audience
that something important was meant to happen however, not revealing it to them,
and therefore, persuading them to watch the full film. When I finished with the
editing of the scenes and Raimonda has provided me with the background music
and credit blocks, I also edited them into the trailer and finalised the
project.
In my trailer, I made sure to use a
range of camera angles in order to allow me to portray the emotions and status
of the different actors. This was a clear strength of the production as it
allowed it to fit in well with the conventions of the thriller genre. For
example, during the scene when two characters (antagonist and protagonist) are
shown, I used a long shot, with the protagonist standing above in order to
portray their power and higher status. In addition, I also used a number of
clos up shots. An example of one is the use of a close up when the antagonist
(Skylar) is shown. The use of this allowed me to connote to the audience the
kind of emotions that the character was having and the mood she was in.
However, a weakness of the production
was the fact that some of the scenes were filmed outside. This meant that
background noise was present and so made it seem unprofessional. In addition,
some of the lighting inside was not great meaning that the footage was poorly
lit and so once again did not seem very professional. In order to improve this,
during editing I made sure to change the colours of them so that they were all
darker, making most of them look similar and fit together. This also, helped in
creating suspicion, increasing tension and following the conventions of a
thriller.
After I was done, I presented the
trailer to my teacher as well as some students from my class, this allowed me
to gain feedback and make any changes that would have helped me to improve it,
allowing me to achieve the highest level possible. As feedback, my peers told
me that the fades to black I included were too short and therefore, very
difficult to notice. They also said that it was difficult to understand the
plot of the trailer, as the dialogue was too quiet and difficult to understand
at times. Moreover, my teacher said that some of the scenes were still too long
and not very strong at certain areas.
As a result of this feedback, I went
back to my project and edited it further in order to make sure that all of the
problems were fixed. In the correction, based on the tips from my peers I
extended the transitions between the scenes (fades to black) so that they were
more noticeable and created a much sharper cut to the scenes. Linking to this,
I also wanted to make sure that the plot of the trailer was much easier to
understand and therefore, in some of the transitions to black, I included short
snappy phrases that linked to the storyline however did not reveal it too much.
Also, as I was told that some of the dialogue was not clear enough and
difficult to understand, me and Raimonda decided to mute most of the
conversations completely and just base conveying the message through the text
and background music. This not only made the trailer seem much more professional,
but it also helped to build tension as the audience was left to guess what was
happening in the scene. By completely muting the scenes, it also allowed us to
overcome the weakness mentioned before, of background noise causing the footage
to seem unprofessional.
Overall, my final piece was created
in a quality, similar to the one of other thriller trailers. This was as I have
completed a lot of previous research to ensure I was aware of all the codes and
conventions as well as, asked for feedback from peers and my teacher.
