Start Of My Research (American Trailer)

As I had decided on what I would be researching it was time to look into what needed to be done. I had chosen that I wanted to make a trailer of my own so the first part of my would be looking into what we see in movie trailers. This would mean watching a variety of trailers to give me an idea into what would be needed for me to produce a decent enough video.

To start with I watched the trailers for "300 Rise Of An Empire" as this is one of the best films I have seen in 2014. The first trailer was released in July of last year even though it was going to be in cinemas till March. I feel the reason movies do this is because they want to start generating an interest in the film. Having a trailer come out so early will make viewers become more involved with the film. As a viewer if a trailer appeals to you it will make you become interested with what will come next.

Another thing I have found that with American movie trailers they show a lot of footage from the film. As a viewer I like this because personally I feel with trailers they need to showcase why people should watch these films. But in another sense it can sometimes take something away from a film as there is no element of surprise when it comes to actually watching the film at the big screen.

In the trailer as well the opening seconds show gerrad butler who was the star of the first movie. It slowly builds up the tension until it shows the blood thirsty action. Because 300 is a franchise they want to bring back fans of the first film into watching the film. So by having stars from the first one it creates excitement about the next film. Another factor about these films is that the stories are based on true events and one thing I did was look into the history of the battle of marathon which is in opening sequence in the film. And its brilliant watching great victories come to live on the big screen

Idea For My Research Poster

For my assignment for my research report i am required to make a research poster on photoshop. I have made the decision to look into film trailers. I want to see if it is possible to make one of my own. For it i will be looking into what it is about a film trailer that appeals to the audience. This will be researching different production trailers and what you visually see within them.

The reason I will be looking at trailers is because when it comes to promotion within the film industry trailers are one of the first visual things we see from the film. Without them it would be hard to generate a buzz around a film. It gives the audience a understanding about what they are going to see and its a way of pulling in an audience. Different genres will appeal to a variety of people, so i will look into what it is that draws in a crowd. Is it a brand of a film? Actor or Actress in the film? Storyline or special effects?

The research i do will then allow me to start a small trailer of my own. So my question is how to plan a film a trailer.

Three Sources

So for Shaun's session we have been given the task to find three relevant sources that i find useful for my specialist skill which for me at the moment is video production/documentaries. I will be discussing a little bit about three of them.

The first one i will be talking about is the Creative Skills Set website. This is organisation which is used by people in the creative industry. On the site you can find information about film making,animation,tv,radio etc. What i like about this site is that it tells about different careers you can get. It explains a lot to the users and i find it is quite helpful in getting information if it is required. On the site you can access things such as courses you can get involved in, events coming up, funds for training. Overall i think for students or graduates it is a great site to try and go forward with enhancing your career.

Below is a screen shot of the site

http://filmmaking.net/

The next site i will be talking about is a site which has various articles on it with various information about a range of video stuff, editing, equipment and books. This is a cracker for anyone who has a love for making films, watching and are looking to get into the industry. It has various write ups on new equipment and it is a great way as a reader to make sure that you are up to date with what is relevant in the market. As well as this it shows future events and festivals which is similar to what the skills net shows too. Finally it has a message board where you can interact with fellow practitioners.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shut-Shoot-Documentary-Guide-Production/dp/0240809351/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392345473&sr=1-12&keywords=documentary This is a book i have ordered from Amazon to get some tips from

Other Cool Stuff:

If you are interested in all things Nottingham then you will like Left Lion which reviews films,music and shows upcoming events in the Nottingham area.

http://www.leftlion.co.uk/ 

The BBC now has make a virtual documentary section where you can download unedited footage and then create your own documentary http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/makeyourown.shtml

Test Shots

So today me and James did a few test shots at the location in Newton Building for where we will hopefully get some filming done. The shots will be uploaded next week when james gets his laptop fixed. We also inquired about the permission to film in the building and we have been pushed in the direction of a Dave Hughes to see if we can get permission as we feel that for location would be ideal due to the lighting and the fact that it would give us room to get all our shots done such as high and low angle shots.

The shots we did where to see if it would look good if we push the crash dummy from a height and we are also planning to use a go pro to show the fall and have someone underneath it while it happens. All that needs to be done before we shoot is make sure all the permission is done and that we have got some actors ready for the shoot. Max is currently doing a location recce of the building for us then all i will have to do is a health and safety form.

Filming JaffnaSpeaks (Pre Production)

So this week during a meeting at The Hive we finally managed to get hold of our injured boss Sean Macaskill and he informed us that the owners at Jaffna Speaks would be in Nottingham for a few days so it would of been our only chances to get filming done with them as they both live in Germany and London. This was a great chance for the team to prove ourselves. It will prepare us for any future roles where time management will be a major factor and sometimes working in a team it is important that you prepare for things such as this. Especially when we know we only have a week to prepare

Most of the meetings we have had up to this point had been mainly based around the Health And Safety videos as we felt this was the most important to get done first. But the planning for the Jaffna took over. The first part was looking at research and we looked back over the work we had done the year before for Boo Boo Kitty. Working on a documentary style project really helped me last year as it felt good working on a project though all the different stages. Pre-production was most important for me personally as it allowed us to work as a team and get to know each others strength.

Then it was all about making sure we had done our research on Jaffna Speaks as this would allow us to make sure that we would ask the right questions. Once we had done that it was about establishing the right questions. With videos like this it is important that we engage with the audience and make them feel some form of empathy for the cause. The video that we make will be going on the kick starter website which is a website used to raise funds so we wanted to make sure that we engage with the owners and let them explain why people should donate. As well as this it is important that we get to know the owners.

With this done it is now about making sure that all equipment is booked ready for the day of filming.

Trent Tv( Second Project)

So today i got the fantastic chance to film the musician beans on toast today at the Capital FM arena. This was my second time working for Trent TV and i thought it would be a great thing to add on to my CV. For anyone who isn't aware of his music i will add a link to his site and a link to one of his tracks. I actually got the  to the arena a bit early and i had to wait till the two of the girls from trent tv. Lucky i have done stuff with the cameras so setting up was pretty easy and Beans asked to film in the laundry room and it made for a very different interviews background. I was on still camera and Anna was on the cut away cameras. Then Kat was interviewing.

Beans was a great guy to interview it was kind of surreal meeting him because as soon as he started talking his voice sounded just like his singing voice. He was so laid back and what was obvious to me he is doing the music for his own enjoyment and not for the need of money. This made the filming a lot more easy because we didn't have to fuss about with him. It was great hearing about his stories and it was nice to see that he is cracking america.

Got to say was a lot of fun filming it and once the edit is done i will link it up. Hopefully i will get chance to get involved with a few more projects at Trent Tv.

https://www.youtube.com/user/beansontoasttube that is a link to his website
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTRENTTV if you are curious about Trent Tv is here a link to some more of the videos

Planning For The Health and Safety Video

So today was our first team meeting for the Hive project. We had arranged a room with sean so we could throw some ideas around and actually start to plan what we would be doing for the videos. Our plans got hampered a little bit by the fact that Sean has sustained a foot injury at home so he is unable to come in for a few days so it means that as a team we now have to work together to make sure that everything is ready.

The first thing we did was email Sally Wain asking if she could send us over a brief and a video. This way we could have then have an idea of what we needed to produce for the videos. Then as a team we all started to discuss what our roles in the team would be. Working with most of the people before it was easy to know what we all needed to do for the project.

Overall it was a productive day for us as a team and we managed to get a few ideas together. We are going to do a split screen off someone doing the right thing one side and the other side doing the wrong thing. We then looked at a few videos of the health and safety videos to get a better idea of what we wanted to do. We also wanted to make the videos a bit more interactive for the students so we looked at the "Pushing Daises" narrative and we thought of having the idea  that the two characters "Jenny" (my creation) and "Tom" interacting with the narrator for the video. In terms of humour we will include a crash dummy and make it very obvious that it is being pushed. We looked at the videos that dr pepper made with the "worst that could happen" campaign

We have arranged to meet up on Thursday to make sure all the task set where done. Then we can think of locations, scripts and making up a plan for filming