Anamatic storyboard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvsdnxPEvbE

Final Storyboard...

As you can see, there have been a number of changes to my trailer since the first draft storyboard. This is my final storyboard and i hope that there wont be many more changes that i will need to make whilst in the editing process, however i anticipate that there will be a few and it is for this reason that i intend to film a little extra footage to make sure that i dont need to go back and film in the editing stage.

Mid October

The planning stage of my coursework is well underway now and i'm on target ti have everything done and dusted for the start of November and the editing stage, as well as filming over the last week of October.

Today we did some work on getting to grips with imoive by reproducing the tenacious d, tribute music video. The aim of this was so we could familiarise ourselves with the software in order to prepare for our main tasks. I also spent a little time reminding myself of the features of photoshop for the ancillary tasks.

Final Idea

Right, just to sum up my final idea...

I'm going to do the trailer for a true story, documentary style film. It will be the story of a character called Alex Coleborn's life who is a professional 'bmxer' and somewhat of a role model within the sport, including the high points and the low points. It will tell the story of his life from the beginning to now, and how he made it to be a professional BMX rider.

Props and Equipment

The props I will need for my teaser trailer and ancillary tasks are quite simple in aspects. A list can be found below:

• BMX bike
• Car
• Actors Clothing (including hat, hoodie, trainers)
• Chair/seating
• Microphone

To begin with i thought the equipment i would need would be a camera and then that was it, i'd be off to shoot, but it turns out i was wrong! I've written a list of the equipment i will need to make sure i dont miss anything out.

• Camera
• Car (transport)
• Action camera
• Tripod
• Memory Card
• Lighting equipment
• Microphone/recording device

Script

Essentially not all of my trailer can be scripted as the more documntary styled aspectswill have to be imprivised in order for them to not appear acted.

The main voice over part of my trailer, though, will need to be scripted and it reads as follows:

Voice over man -

The story of alex coleborn is about his mission to become the best in the highly contested sport of BMX. From a child with a dream, to a man with great talent, Alex's love for his sport has driven him to the top.

Alex cashed his car about 3 years ago.

I didn't think he was gonna walk away from the crash alive, nevermind unhurt.

There's this, sketchy terane where alex is happy, and i dont think anyone will change that.

But that's Alex.

Ancillary Tasks

As well as the main task i cant forget to plan the ancillary task, these may potentially only be a good photograph, but it all needs to be planned out. I will think about props, settings and everything like that for these too as it is equally important.

The actor will be the same as the actor i choose for the main task, and likewise the images will be set in one of my final setting choices.

My first thoughts for the poster are to have a shot of the main characters face in close up, with a ramp and BMX in the background. THis is just an initial idea and i will be posting drafts up sometime during the month. As for the magazine front cover, i was thinking more a long shot of the character walking away with his BMX and then editing it to look like a silhouette walking into a sun set.

Locations and Actors...

Right, today i went and scouted around for potential locations for my filming. There will need to be several locations for the different aspects of the filming and i have made a list of all potential ideas, which can be seen below.

1. BMX skatepark
2. Street location
3. House
4. Formal interview setting
5. Car park
6. Garden with a ramp
7. Ramp somewhere
8. Dirt jumps
9. Road
10. Green screen

But, the 4 locations i have chosen to film at are the following:

A skatepark

I chose this location because of it’s diverse filming capabilities. I would be able to get a variety of different shots and camera movements involved in my production and the ramps allow for an action packed trailer. However, the exposed nature of the park means that filming will be open to the weather, so fingers crossed its okay.

A field where there is a ramp


A road side

This road side is a brilliant location to have to extra information on the 'accident' in the story. Also it is in a quite place so the issue of traffic on the road isn't extensive. Weather isn such a problem here, although it is still outside, because if it is raining we can use an umbrella and it would simply add to the sense of realism in the trailer.


An interviewing room


For the interview i've chosen a home setting at a house of a friend of mine. This will make the shot seem more casual and less of a formal interview, which is the feel im trying to generate with my whole trailer. Also the actor i have chosen will feel less pressured and hopefully the footage i get will be of a higher quality.

A different skate ramp

The other location i have chosen to film the BMX aspect is at a ramp in a field. The reason i have chosen this instead of a more formal and tidy setting is because i want to show the progression of the main character from where he used to be from where he is now, and i think by doing this i will be able to show it.


Actors

I will need 3 different actors for my trailer, one of which has to be a man called Alex, because he is a professional BMX rider and is central to the plot. The others i will consider many and choose the two from them. The choices are shown below:

These are the actors that i have chosen to use:

Liam


Alex

The reasons i have for choosing these two actors are as follows...

• I thought that the character would fit the genre of the film better if he were male as apposed to female,
• Liam is a talented actor,
• Alex had to be enrolled because he is a professional BMX rider and is therefore the only person suitable to play the role as a professional BMX rider,
• I wanted the youthfulness aspect to get across effectively.

The beginning of story boarding...

Above is my first draft of a Storyboard, i have begun to put ideas together and get an idea for the flow of the trailer. The titles im still working on, but they will be over the clips through out the trailer.

Calender/shooting scheldule...

This is my month by month plan of what will happen when in order to complete my coursework by the set deadline.

Shooting Schedule:

• Monday - Establishing shots
• Tuesday - Skatepark footage
• Wednesday - 'field' footage
• Thursday - interview/roadside
• Friday - voice overs plus other sounds + any other shots i have left over

When will i need camera's?

I plan to shoot over half term (Mon 25th Oct - Fri 29th Oct) so i will need any camera's then, i plan to use a normal digital camera for the majority of the footage, however there are a few opportunities to use one of the action camera's that school has to offer. This would allow the camera to be strapped to the bike for example. I will also need to use a sound recorder on the friday to get the voice over etc.

An Update

I finished my treatment sheet the other week and since then i've been playing around with final cut pro and getting to grips with it a lot more, which will help me out a lot when i comes to producing my trailer.I'm now beginning to think about some potential actors, and sport ideas for my trailer, i'll get some photos and post them up here soon, and then i can follow up with my final choice of actor.

Along with the selection process for the actors, i need to begin to think of the props and settings that i will use during my filming, in order to translate the genre easily.

Something i need to start thinking about is the next stage on from my treatment sheet, i need to begin to story board my idea and get a sense of what each shot will look like. Firstly i'll produce a rough story board simply to get a quick idea of what the shots will look like, and then i'll reproduce a final neat one to make sure i get all of the right shots when filming over October half term.

However, as well as the main task i need to remember to think about the two ancillary tasks too. I have chosen to do a poster and the magazine front cover. Dues to my research i understand the codes and conventions of both and i will need to begin thinking about the props for those too, the actor is going to be the same of course. Later on during the month i will draw up some drafts when i've decided the shot i will take.

Treatment Sheet

This is my treatment sheet. What is on here is not set in concrete and by all means it could be altered later down the line. This is just a rough outline as to what direction i want to go with my trailer.

The start of planning

Right, my research is all done now and it's time to move on to the planning stage. To begin with i will make a treatment sheet to begin getting some ideas together. I'm sticking with my original idea of the trailer for a true story, documentary styled film and it will be centred around a character who rides a BMX and the story of his life, from the high points to the low.

I'm now half way through the treatment sheet and i'll post it up on here during the week.

Questionnaire findings

My questionnaire gave me the opportunity to understand what my target audience like to see in their trailers, which will help me in producing a teaser trailer that will apealm to them. As a result of my research into similar media texts, i already understand the codes and conventions of action movie trailers.

During my research i focussed on a range of genres, in order to give me a broader understanding and also allowing me to choose the genre that appeled to me most.

I understand that my target audience...

• Are mostly within the age range 16-30 and are therefore young adults,
• 20 out of 60 of the people in my research prefer true story films, based on the facts,
• 3 times as many people were male than female and therefore my target audience will be mostly men,
• most of the public find out about new films from magazines, this is closely followed by TV.

How do you find out about new release films?

What is your favourite genre of film?

What is your gender?

How old are you?

Questionnaire

This is a cppy of my questionnaire. I placed copies of it around my school, in the main library in town and also in various Cofee shops around the islnad. Due to the short space of time and a few anomalous results, i obtained a total of 60 results. These results will be displayed in later posts, along with what they have enabled me to understand both about my target audience and what they want.

Target audience research

The target audience of my trailer is likely to be young males, because of the nature of the film and the sport aspect. As well as young males it will be anyone who is interested in extreme sports, or BMX likewise.


Someone like Studio 411 is likely to distribute my film, a smaller company when compared to such giants like Universal. They distributed films like 'Travis Pastrana: 199 lives' which is a similar style thing based on the sports of motox and freestyle motox.


ESPN films (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) would be the most likely kind of company to make my film, they often make sport orientated films like "3: The Dale Earnhardt Story" - a film documenting the life of Nascar driver 'Dale Earnhardt'. This is a film of similar style to mine, a film about a BMX rider and how he made it in the sport of BMX.

Nearly the end of September...

The research section of the coursework is now pretty much over and it's time to start the planning for the majority of October.What i have found from my research will aid me in the planning stages and also in the construction.

The research has helped me alot to understand the codes and conventions of real media products. For example, teaser trailer are roughly a minute to a minute and a half in length and invole quite a lot of effects. Teaser trailers have a great deal of diversity and no two seem to be the same, no matter what genre. Magazines on the other hand often follow the same codes and conventions, the titl is always at the top and the cover lines down the side, with the main cover line slightly bigger and bolder. The main image cover the majority of the front cover.Film posters are much more like trailers in the fact that they vary hugely. But in general, they feature actor names and a catching main image full of effects. The title, by nature, is always bold an clear.

Now i need to move on and begin to think alot more about my initial ideas and choose some actors and settings. I am going to stick with the first idea of a teaser trailer for a true story film about an athlete.

Harry Brown - trailer analysis

This is the link to the Harry Brown trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVOSfHFNlcI

Harry Brown is an action film, and we can see this from the meanings within the trailer. The trailer itself is quick and involves a lot on the side of guns and explosions. It is set in dark lighting to give it a more sinister look. There are a lot of things in this trailer which i like, and there is a lot to be learnt about the codes and conventions of real trailers.

• One of the first shots in the trailer, after the establishing shot, is the following one. In it we see a darkly lit face to the side of the screen. This tells us that there is something important about this character. He is a famous actor and as a result the film is being sold by the star appeal of him as a purpose. The fact that we only see half of his face is almost saying this guys so famous you don't need to see his whole face to recognise him.

The camera is also looking up at him, which gives the impression he is somewhat important.

• The trailer features a lot of quick cutting which makes the trailer seem to go with a lot more pace and excitement. This makes the audience concentrate and also highlights the action genre of the film.
• The lighting of the trailer is dark the whole way through, which puts a more sad and more upsetting spin on everything. In the dark everything seems worst and more scary, the fact that it is dark, again, scares the audience and makes them feel slightly uncomfortable.

• The next couple of screen shots show some of the mise en scene that is involved in the trailer in order to establish it in the action genre. For example, we see explosions and guns. These are things that we would associate with no other genre other than action.

• The way in which Harry appears the most in the trailer tells us that he is the most important character in the play and is central to the story line.
• One thing that I noticed when watching the trailer was the use of shot reverse shot. This is a feature that we see in continuity editing, and as a result the audience get a sense of perspective, but at the same time are kept concentrating on what’s happening rather than what the editing is doing.

• The final shot of the trailer is of Harry Brown himself holding a gun, the camera is looking up at him and as a result we understand, as an audience, that him is in a position of power.

• When the police come into the trailer it becomes lighter, which puts a more happy and hopeful spin on the situation. This could be said to symbolise the police as a form of hope and salvation within the film.

• The trailer has certain occasions where it fades to blank and writing is seen, these is a common theme that you would find in teaser trailers and it is something that i will need to consider. Not only does this add dramatic effect, it also tells the audience that there has been a change in place or time.