WHAT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR...

Although the blogging isn't finished, the teaser trailer is! We have now edited and produced our 'SNATCHED' movie teaser trailer. Be prepared to hold onto your seats as you watch our gangster/thriller teaser trailer! linking together the genres of gangster, thriller and social realism we have created the one of its kind teaser trailer:

SNATCHED MAGAZINE FRONT COVER ANALYSIS

After creating the magazine film cover, i have analysed the main aspects to give you a brief description of what was included and why it was included. Hopefully through my descriptions you can understand why everything was used and how the aspects work to attract all types of film lovers who have an interest in today's movie news:

OUR FILM MAGAZINE FRONT COVER AND CREATION PROCESS

Our magazine front cover has now been created and i have attached the creation stages below just to give you an insight into how the cover was created. Each step adds a different aspect and effect to the overall image which helps create a detailed design of what a film magazine front cover should like like in order to attract the correct target audience:

STAGE 1:

 1. Raw photo


















STAGE 2:

2. Adjusted colours, brightness and contrast to make the photo darker and the light stand out more















STAGE 3:

3. Added bar code
















STAGE 4:

4. The name of the magazine added – Font Arial Heavy, font size 1000px















STAGE 5:


5. The title moved behind an object (head), using the selecting tool to create an extra layer of the main object (Michael) and moving the ‘FILM’ layer behind the main objects layer.















STAGE 6:

6. Website, issue and price added – Font Impact Condensed, font size 75px
















STAGE 7:

7.  Sell line in a circle, use of different fonts, and colours to make the name of the film stand out. Shadow dropped on ‘Redemption’ and the circle















STAGE 8:



 8.  Titles added and shadows dropped to make it look professional, the colours are matching the main films colours
















STAGE 9:

9.  Main title added, font is bigger (more catchy), no shadow dropped to make it different from the rest of the titles.
















STAGE 10:


10. An Oscar trophy added next to main title – relates to main title

COMPULSORY QUESTION 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media?

MUSIC FOR SOUNDTRACK

Researching online has allowed us to stumble across several websites with free music sountracks. After using the 'garageband' application on the iMac, we decided that this application wasn't siutable for us, we then came across www.freemusicplay.com . This website provided us without a variety of soundtracks that we took an interest in. After playing the soundtracks against our trailer, we picked the one we thought most suitable.

The following link will take you to the webpage which will allow you to preview our music soundtrack: http://freeplaymusic.com/search/keyword_search.php

This sound track had been created to build tension; although the whole beat has a 'racey' vibe, it starts mellow and gradually increases in volume and speed. The gradual increase suits our trailer because our trailer also increases in speed and tension. As our trailer progresses, the transisitions become shorter and the clips become quicker and snappier to create a similar 'racey' effect just like the music. The music will help emphasise the tension in our trailer and will work to create that hear-racing affect for the audience as the scenes become more action filled.

Here is the iMovie application which we use to edit our film. The green section is the our soundtrack which we have applied over 3/4s of our trailer; we have not paplied it from the very beginning because it does not suit our mellow start. The sound waves included in the green section allow us to adjsut our volume of the music, this came in handy because some of the clips include diegetic sound that we wish to hear in the trailer; for example, when Johnny is on the phone we want to hear what he is saying, therefore we turn the music lower and make his voice louder.

This is the iTunes library that we strored all the interesting soundtracks on, this way we could simply flick through tracks and play them against different parts of our trailer to see if they work correctly to create the correct mixture of image and sound to interest our audience and make most effective.

DIRECTORIAL INFLUENCES

Below is simply a list of directorial influences that have helped me create my own gangster genre ideas/codes/conventions based on their own work. There are many gangster films but the greatest ones stand out by a mile and are recognised by people all over the world. These films are so great because they have been created by some of the world's greatest directors. Here are the ones i personally researched and show an interest in:

1. Brian De Palma (most famous work: scarface, mission impossible, the untouchables)


Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission: Impossible.

2. Francis Ford Coppola (most famous work: The godfather sequel, patton)

Francis Ford Coppola, born April 7, 1939 is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors and he epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, that includes Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, Philip Kaufman and George Lucas, who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary film-making.

3. Guy Ritchie (most famous work: lock, stock and two smoking barrels, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes and  Rocknrolla)

Guy Stuart Ritchie (born 10 September 1968) is an English screenwriter, film director and producer, best known for directing Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Swept Away, Revolver, RocknRolla, Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

THE SCRIPT

Our teaser trailer footage is now complete and has been sequenced correctly using iMovie. We have also added in all our transitions and adjusted colour contrasting to make our trailer flow correctly. the final adjustment is to create the voice-over and input the recording over our trailer but at the same time we must match the recordings to the correct scenes. Below is the script that we have created that we think will help emphasise our trailer and help create gangster conventions. The voice-over helps to tell our story and gives describes each scene to prevent confusion for the audience. We have decided to use Johnny for the voice over because the stroyline is from his point of view. Below is the script for the voice-over:

"As far back as i can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster."
(used over the beginning lake scene)

"Mansion, beautiful wife... and the money."
(used over the mansion, wife and money scenes)

"With the money, come the problems."
(used over the first scene of Ben waking up in bed)

"When people owe me money, i expect it back... sharpish."
(used over the scene of Ben lighting a cigarette and the following scene of him checking his phone)

"Me and Mickey run a firm business, and we do not tolerate fuck-ups"
(used over the scene of Johnny and Mickey at the lake and the scenes of them getting out of the car)

"Noone has ever been stupid enough to double cross me."
(used over the beginning kidnapping scenes of Ben and Aaron creeping up on Ruby)

"and involving my family, could be life-threatening for them."
(used over the actual kidnapping scenes)

"Noone will ever double cross me and get away with it!"
(used over the final kidnapping scenes and the phonecall scenes between Ben and Johnny)

"Being a gangster is not just a job, it's a way of life..."
(used over the final movie scenes of Johnny and Mickey approaching Ben and Aaron with Ruby hostage)


Below is a quick analysis of the voice-over options provided by iMovie, I have simply identified to key aspects which allowed us to create and adjust our voice-over:

FILM POSTER STAGES:

Below is step by step stages of the order we created our film poster and how each step brigns a different aspect to the poster:

STAGE 1:

1. (pic ‘p1’) raw photo on a black A3 format background

STAGE 2:

2. (pic ‘p2’) Billing block added using various font sizes + the production company logo, website and age restriction added

STAGE 3:

3. (pic ‘p3’) release date added in red

STAGE 4:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. (pic ‘p4’) main title added, bigger font size (easy to notice) colour matches release date

STAGE 5:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. (pic ‘p5’) age restriction added

STAGE 6:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. (pic ‘p6) colour, brightness and contrast adjusted, image size extended and blended into background + tag line added

 

 

 

 

 

MAGAZINE FRONT COVER ANALYSIS

After finishing with the film poster section i have decided to start analysing magazine front covers. Here is one i have done today after researching online and viewing other analysed covers. I have tried to include as much infomation as possible that i think is useful when creating a front cover:

ANALYSING SNATCHED FILM POSTER

After analysing several other film posters, i finally managed to analyse our own. I have tried to describe every step we made whilst creating the poster and also give you the reasons for doing what we have done. I feel our poster is an excellent design and would attract our intended target audience:

ANLAYSING FILM POSTERS

This post was created before the creation of our film poster but it was drafted because i wanted to create several examples of analysed film posters before uploading it. Here are the film posters that i analysed to which helped me get an underdstanding of how ours should be created:


Poster 1 (Batman- the dark knight rises)

 



 

POSTER 2: (Adjustment Bureau)

 FILM POSTER 3: (Red Sonja)

 

REPRESENTATION IN OUR FILM

I recently posted about representation in the media, I thought it would be benficial to post about the representation used in our film trailer. As i said before, representation is baised and different types of people are seen in certain ways becuase the media make it that way. Because of these jugdements, we as a group have worked to make our characters strong stereotypes of people that are judged in the media.This will help our audience recognise the type of people they are. Below is how our characters would be represented throughout sociecty if they were real. I have created 'WORDLE' boards to give you connotations and descriptions of our characters:


JOHNNY AND MICKEY:

 















BEN AND AARON:

 
















RUBY:

PROP SHEET FOR FILMING- MAIN PROPS ONLY

Throughout our filming we obviously had to use different props that would help create iconography for a gangster genre. The props we used helped develop our characters and also help create stereotypically 'gangsters' and 'chavs'. I have attached several images below which just shows you our main and most important props:

 
This is the knife used by Ben in the final scene also. Ben is cold hearted just like Mickey however the choice of a knife as a weapon works to create Ben's low social class image. A knife can murder just as much as a gun can however it doesn't create as much powerful imagery. The knife is also just a kitchen knife, it shows Ben lacks professionalism and is unclear with what he is doing. A hand gun can be used by all types of characters like special agents, soldiers and police men; this is because these men are all proffesional and skilled. However, a kitchen knife in a movie would only be used for killing normally by someone who has killed last minute or a chav of some sort. This is because their motives and ideas are unclear, this is why it is a good prop to use to show Ben's desperation.

This is the gun we used, owned by Mickey throughout the film. The gun connotes crime, power and murder and is also a clear enigma code. The gun helps create to the powerful status of a gangster by providing them with authority. As you can imagine, not many people confront a man holding and poiting a gun; this is what makes Mickey the stone cold gangster we want him to be. This prop was used in the final scene when coming face to face with the kidnappers Ben and Aaron.

The final main prop is the bundle of cash used in the house scene. Money connotes power, respect and hard work and this is exactly how we want our audience to picture our Johnny character. Our trailer includes a close-up shot of Johnny counting through his money, this shot is simply used to show that whatever Johnny does for a career, he does it well. With regards to codes and conventions of a Gangster genre, money is a key element because without lots of money, a gangster cannot live his flashy lifestyle or even employee his team of killers. Also Ben has targetted Johnny because he assumes he has alot of money, therefore we had to prove this was true; it makes our trailer seem more realistic.

TWEEKING WITH OUR PROPS

As we have decided to include a gun into our trailer we had to locate a realistic looking toy gun that would fit into our scenes correctly. The gun we discovered was orange and therefore we had to spray paint it black. A close-up look at our gun looks rather unproffesional however we used it today for filming and also in our photoshoot and it worked perfectly!

As you can see from our poster, the gun has worked perfectly through editing skills created on the computer. The Gun has been added in to create an enigma code and also to simply include more iconagraphy into the trailer and poster.

REPRESENTATION IN THE MEDIA

There are different definitions for the word REPRESENTATION :

- 'something was already there and has been re-presented by the media'

-'standing in for us, being somewhere we couldn't be' e.g. society being represented by political figures.

PROFESSOR RICHARD DYER

  Entertainment and representation and the relations between them as well as music and film (including melodrama), Italian cinema (especially in its popular forms) and gay / lesbian / queer cultures.

 Dyer said: 'How we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat  others is based on how we see them. How we see them comes from representation'.       




 -What this quote is saying and the point Richard Dyer is making is that how social groups are treated in cultural representation is part and parcel of how they are treated in life.

•   EXAMPLE:

- HERE, is the feedback after Google searching 'teenage girl' on Google images. As Dyer explains, the way the media portrays groups of people such as teenagers for example, determines the public's opinion of how they portray them and treat them.

-Due to the media constantly focusing on the exaggerated ASBO behaviour of ALL teenagers in the modern day, teenagers as a whole are now portrayed as the well analysed image above. Factors such as good education, voluntary work and sporting achievements are put to side and forgot about by those who are injected by newspapers, magazines, tv etc.

INJECTION THROUGH THE MEDIA AKA 'THE HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY'

The hypodermic needle theory was a theory that has was devised and has been developed over the years, its main influence was based in the 1930s and the 1940s. The basic idea of the theory is that whatever is put in the media is then automatically believed by its consumers. The needle is a metaphor that is used to suggest that those who create the media 'inject' their ideas into audiences.

EXAMPLE: if a newspaper article claimed that a footballer such as David Beckham was having an affair, the hypodermic needle suggests that this information is automatically believed by those who read it due to it being commercialised.

The hypodermic needle plays a massive part in representation and to a certain extent is true. However people or situations are portrayed in the media depends on a wide range of naive people's views.

BEHIND THE SCENES OF OUR FILM POSTER PHOTOSHOOT

As said before we decided to visit the photography teacher of our sixth form and request permission to use their equipment to create a much more proffesional looking image that would look more powerful and more eye appealing for our audience. Below is just a quick behind the scenes image of this taking place, just to give you a quick loook at how we created our film poster image and the equipment involved:

ACTORS LIST AND CHARACTER PROFILES

I've decided to create this post to give you an insight on which actors will be playing which roles in our film and also a quick briefing of each character and their back story. We have assigned each character with an actor and i have attached an image of each character below to:

Johnny Teece (Michael Foreman)
Johnny Teece was brought up in the streets of Nottingham; with no father around he took it upon himself to fend for him and his mother. Johnny has always had a rough and ready attitude that managed to lead him down the wrong paths. Johnny had a thirst for crime and always knew he'd make himself rich one day through it. Johnny became invovled in a drug gang as a teenager and eventually worked his way up to the top; he is now the most respected drug baron in the whole of the UK. Money, power and respect all the only factors that cross his mind.

Mickey     (Alex Wright)             

Mickey is Johnny's right hand man, he controls the aggressive side of the business and deals with Johnny's problems so that Johnny doesn't have to. Mickey was born in London but spent 3 years in Nottinghamshire prison where he came across a friend of Johnnys. Whilst inside Mickey was introduced to Johnny when visiting and this is where Johnny first offered Mickey work when released. Johnny labels Mickey as his most trusted employee and keeps him by his side at all times. Mickey's ultimate loyalty lies with Johnny and he would do anything for him.

 

 

Ruby (Alice Kerry)

Ruby his Johnny's pride and joy, if there's one thing that compares with money, power and respect to him its her. Johnny met ruby 2 years ago in a local nightclub in Nottingham. Ruby has always had an act for getting herself into danger although since being with Johnny, not many people would be foolish enough to cause trouble with her. Ruby knows she is protected by Johnny and because of this she has developed a confident personality who feels she can get whatever she wants. She is seen by many as a gold digger.


Ben (Tom Teece)
Ben was born on a rough council estate in the inner city area of Nottingham, it is here were he developed his low social class and chavvy approach. Bens matching tracksuit and baseball cap allow you to understand his chavvy ways and intimidating attitude. He is a regular drug user and client of Johnny's and has managed to work himself up a substantial debt problem. Theft and drug abuse are Ben's main attributes and are found upon his outstanding criminal record. Most of his life is spent in desperation and he has now found himself in his most desperate situation yet.

Aaron  (James Noble)

Alongside Ben is Aaron, as the film will portray, Aaron is Ben's metaphorical pet. Aaron is the perfect example of a dead end and has never been capable of thinking for himself. Aaron has worked alongside Ben in many crimes and has found himself taking blame for most of it. Although he hasn't found himself in prison yet, the most likely routes for Aaron are either jail or death. Simuarly to Ben, Aaron also developed an addiction for drug use and is also dodging Johnny. The two do not think before acting and this constantly leads them into trouble with the wrong people.

KEEPING YOU UP TO DATE ON THE FILMING

Just to keep you up to date on our filming progress I am uploading some shots taken of our second day of filming. We used the other night to film our kidnapping scene. We introduced a new character to the camera this time by including Bens partner in crime, Aaron. This filming was successful and we managed to include the range of shots we wanted.

• This was Ben, Aaron and Ruby devising a plan before filming of how exactly to insert Ruby into the boot of the car without causing to many injuries! Although we want the scene to look real we did not plan on causing any actual damage to our actors.
  

•  This is a shot of the kidnap vehicle just pulling up behind Ruby and blocking her into the alleyway. We used the headlights of the car to blind Ruby and took close-up shots of her reaction to the blinding lights to create a sense of confusion and danger.
  

• Once again this is another shot of the car beginning to block Ruby in the isolated alleyway. The clips show Ruby walking straight into the darkness which almost suggests she is walking into her own danger being as naive as she is. The audience know that her walking into a dark alley way can only connote danger.

THE FINAL FILM POSTER

We have taken our ideas and old film poster and constructed a new poster. We decided to take our main character through a photo-shoot and and add a tone of proffesionalism to the poster. Through the use of new image, lighting and adding iconography we have devised a new poster which works progressively better at grabbing the attention of our target audience.

 

WHAT WE HAVE CHANGED

•  The image- as I said we used a proffesional photo shoot of our main character Johnny Teece. Throgh the effect of lighting we have managed the lighten one side of his face and darken the other side; this creates a yin/yang effect. The light and dark tones connote good and bad, this works for our character because although he is a gangster and a fellon, he is the character the audience sympathises for because he is feeling the pain. His story is the one we are concerned with and we feel pain as he does.
• Clothing- Although the character is bearing the same clothing, we have have a clear view of his suit and overcoat this time. The last film poster only showed the back of Johnny which only gave us a view of his overcoat. Showing our audience his full outfit gives them a clear understanding of his power due to his dress sense. A black suit and overcoat are clear indications and conventions of a modern day english gangster; they provide him with an important and powerful look and add a sense of proffesionalism and seriousness.
• Iconagraphy- The last image lacked iconagraphy; as well as the suit and overcoat, we have added in a massive give away to our genre, the characters gun. Although at the start of our filming journey we frowned upon using guns, they are massive key elements to a gangster genre and would be impossible to leave out; we do not plan on using a wide range of gun clips in the trailer but it is a good idea to include one in the poster. Not only is the gun iconograpy, it can also act as a major enigma code; the gun connotes murder and will leave the audience wondering about the purpose of the gun.