INTRODUCTION: Actors and Character Profiles

We've got our two main actors!

Our main protagonist is going to be played by Chrissy Lightowler. We have worked wither her before and know that she is a very talented and reliable person which is why we have asked her to work with us again. We know that we can tell her exactly how we want something and she will be able to achieve it.

Character Profile:

Name: Alice

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Physical appearance: Average height, thin, blonde curly hair, blue eyes

Costume: hoodie, grubby clothes, boots

Speech: Quiet but when made to fit in confident and laughable


Personality: Withdrawn and sometimes shy towards new people and friends, wanting to hide her secret (illness) from everyone she meets while coming across very melancholy. However throughout the plot while making friends and finding her partner she becomes happier and more confident, feeling better about herself. She is driven and motivated to start a new life before her time is up but finds it hard to deal with the immense pressures of keeping her secret hidden.

Likes: She enjoys feeling free and being able to do anything she sets her mind to. She like to be sociable with her new friends and loves being with her boyfriend. She feels normal. She likes go out for a couple of beers and sing karaoke as it makes her feel alive.

Family: She has runaway from her family and rings and writes to them once a month to let them know she is ok and tell them what she is upto. She tells them not to worry but doesn't tell them where she is, knowing they will come to take her home, take her back to the life of being at hospitals and under care.

Relationships: She loves her parents but wants freedom and a life away from her illness for as long as she can.  Later on in the plot she develops a relationship who doesn't know about her illness. He introduces her to his friends and together they are happy and carefree, like Nina feels all teenagers should feel.


Our leading male is going to be played by Luke Shields who we have also worked with before. He is a very enthusiastic and talented young man who we know we can rely on to work well with Chrissy.

Character Profile:

Name: Dan

Gender: Male

Age: 19

Physical appearance: Average height, thin, short blonde hair, blue eyes

Costume: jeans, shirt, trainers, raincoat

Speech:  chatty, polite and charming

Personality: Happy go lucky and carefree, wanting to make the most of each day. He is a popular young man yet is very modest and sees the best in everyone and wants the best for everyone. He is very caring and loves his dog Oliver more than anything in the world. He is very hard working and doing very well at the office, earning a decent wage.

Likes: Sitting in a coffee shop people watching, taking Oliver on long dog walks, sleeping, going out with his friends for a couple drinks, making the most of everyday. 

Family: He is very close with his Mum, while his Father died when he was 3. He has a younger sister who he loves dearly and sees on occasion but speaks to regularly.

Relationships: A big family man but also likes to have his own space. He is very close to his friends and likes to spend as much free time as he can just hangout and talking. Nina is his first real love while he has dated a lot and really wants to make things work. He is really interested in her and all of her past and is confused to why she is so secretive about it.

NAMING OUR FILM: Inital Ideas

This is a post for initial thoughts towards the title for our film. 

I have taken themes from the plot and thought of linking words which could be relevant and fit together.

To then gain further research I have taken the themes are put them into a thesaurus to then get further inspiration and ideas. I have then put all of my research onto a mindmap.

Mind Map created by Etty Hope with GoConqr

LOCATION

This post is to display my current thinking process in terms of locations for filming our trailer.

At the moment we are thinking of having a train station as our location for our first couple of shots. This is an easy location as we live close enough to Pewsey Station to travel to it, no costs included. The easy access is important as we can film their when needed; even with sort notice if we miss a shot or want to add something in later down the line.  As train stations can be dangerous we are going to have to be very careful when filming and plan a health and safety/risk assessment discussion beforehand.

(Here are two google images of the train station we are going to be filming at)

We're also hoping to include a timelapse of a busy street at night, which I feel we can do easily in terms of locations. Although we may live in small towns we are surrounded by bigger towns with bridges which is ideal; such as Trowbridge, Swindon and Bath.

We would also like to have a scene shot from a hospital which could be more difficult than our current other locations, as although there are many hospitals around we would most likely be restricted to what and where we can film. This is why to lessen the complications we are aiming to just film our main protagonist in the waiting room of a hospital. If that doesn't work we can then try our local doctors.

 (Here are two images of our locations; the first idea of location is Bath hospital [above] and if that fails we will try Southbroom Doctors in Devizes [below])

These are our main locations for the trailer at this current stage; however we do have some ideas for some smaller, less vital scenes, some even one shots; where we can film in very easily accessed places such as: streets, bedrooms and fields. We can film these shots inside our houses and around the areas we live in.

PRODUCTION LOGO: Final Logo

Today we began designing out production logo having chosen the name 'SE PRODUCTIONS'. 

I came up with the name wanting to keep it as simple and short as possible to make it more memorable. The reason for 'SE' is clearly our names 'Scarlet' and 'Etty'. As for the logo we didn't want to add images to it or a fancy background, thinking the simpler the better as we did't want it to be too busy.

We experimented with colours, looking at black, white and grey, thinking that we wanted to keep the colours quite plain but that the white was too bright and would contrast our darker scenes slightly too much. Here are some experiments below.

After using photoshop to edit the sizing and adding flicks to the S we decided that that was going to be our finished logo.

Next we are going to us the software Adobe After Effects to play around with some moving logos, to see if one of them fits with our trailer or whether we will keep to a still image.

SHOTLIST/STORY BOARD: inital ideas

Here is a scanned photo of a mindmap that Scarlet and I have discussed and created together of our inital ideas to what both myself and Scarlet would like to include within the trailer, which gives the audience an idea to what the films plot would be without giving too much away and spoiling it. This has lead us to discuss shot types/angles, casting and location and the problems we may have to overcome.

VOXPOP

Here I have linked our VoxPop which we have uploaded to YouTube, which we have created in order to add more information to our audience research. It has helped us realise what key aspects of a trailer are most important and what types of music, film etc. our target audience like.

Although our target audience is focusing on ages 16-26, we have asked people between the ages of 17-19 as they were people we had easy access to as we could ask them in school, as it was very hard to find anyone older who would be willing to be filmed. Although we have only had 17-19 year olds on the voxpop this has been evened out by the ages of the people which answered the survey.

 

Our Questions:

• What is your favourite film genre?
• What makes a good film trailer?
• What is the last trailer you watched and what did you think of it?
• Where do you most often see trailers being advertised?
• What is your favourite music genre?
• Are soundtracks important in trailers: if yes why?
• Do you know any trailers where you think the soundtrack was especially effective?

PRODUCTION LOGO: initial ideas

Here is a blog post, where I am collecting all of my inspiration and thoughts onto one blog post before creating my own. While researching Production Logos, I have come across some which I really love. I love their simplicity and how they are just in black and white but also how they're very artistic.

 

In terms of more colourful, moving production logos, I really like the one on the pan trailer which is Warner Brothers, however it has clock hands moving on it as if the logo was a clock, keeping with the time theme which is regularly used in the Peter Pan stories. I have chosen to comment on this as not only do I really like it but it was something that really stuck by me and I remembered really clearly when thinking about production logos, which is how I want my audience to be about mine. Below is a link to the trailer, which shows the logo in the first couple of seconds:

SURVEY RESULTS AND ANALYSIS: films

Here is the second survey I did all about films. This survey is important as its going to help make decisions based on my target markets opinions, likes and dislikes.

Film survey from EttyHope

SURVEY RESULTS AND ANALYSIS: cinemas

Here is the first survey I did all about cinemas. This survey is important as its going to help make decisions based on my target markets opinions, likes and dislikes.

PROTAGONIST'S COSTUMES

Initial Ideas: 

'Alice' the main characters costume: dark colours: grey and black (connote sadness/gloominess), dirty trainers and a big hoodie which she hides under. A big rucksack and very plain and simple clothes. Natural/minimal make up.

 In shots: packing to leave, at train station, before meeting 'Dan', in car arguing, at hospital, while crying

'Alice' the main characters costume: brighter colours such as yellow, red and pink (reflecting her happier mood/contrasting the greys and blacks) as well as white (to show innocence), same muddy trainers, zip jumper to show she's more open, not hiding anymore.

In shots: while appearing happy, in kitchen making tea