Casting shots

I have three actors for my teaser trailer; "Home". The main character is the young girl; Evie Becks, played by Lily Hewitt. I chose her because she is very good at acting and has experience in acting even though she is young, so I thought that she would be perfect for the role of Evie. She fitted the image that I wanted to create of a young and vulnerable girl. My other two characters are Nicola Becks, played by Emma Hewitt and Tom Strade, played by Conor Hewitt. Nicola is Evies mum. I chose Nicola because she is a versatile actress who can change from one different thing to another very easily, and this is similar to what her character does. Because at the beginning, Nicola is a happy and kind mum, but then when she meets Tom he changes her and she begins not to care about her daughter or herself anymore. And I chose Tom because he is very tall and looks the part of a villian (don't tell him I said that!). I felt that he would live up to the role of Tom that I had created.

I am very grateful for all the work that my actors have done, they have made my idea come to life in every possible aspect, thank you.

This is Lily Hewitt, who plays Evie Becks:

This is Emma Hewitt, who plays Nicola Becks:

This is Conor Hewitt, who plays Tom Strade:

Location shots

Here are some location shots of where I am going to film my teaser trailer:

Choosing a location wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. This is because my film is filmed in an average family household, so I just chose a house that I thought would work with my idea. The first picture is the house where I filmed the whole of my teaser trailer, inside and out. Then the next picture is of the living room where I filmed the first shot of the video camera effect and a few other shots throughout the trailer. The next picture is of the road where I filmed the outside shots of the girl running and of her on her own in the last shot. The next picture is of the girls bedroom where I filmed a few shots of her upset and packing her bags. Then the final picture is of the first shot of the trailer where the sad, non-diegetic music begins.

Choosing a title

Choosing a title for my film was much harder than I thought! It is crucial that the title of a film sounds right and not too 'cheesy', and that it doesn't give everything away. I was going to call my film "Runaway", but then I thought that it would give away the story line that the young girl runs away from home. So I thought about other names such as "Evie Becks" - the young girls name, and "A Broken Family", but I felt that they didn't sound effective enough and "A Broken Family" sounded too 'cheesy'. I then thought about calling it "Home Sweet Home", but it still didn't sound right. So I decided to call it just "Home", although its only one word, it portrays the right message for my film. It gives the audience an idea about a family home but also leaves it open for thought about how things aren't as they seem behind closed doors.

Film schedule

Here is the film schedule for my teaser trailer: "Home". This will help me prepare for each shot that I am going to film, what characters I need, what props I need and how long it will take. It will help me organise each filming session and make sure that I have everything I need to get the right shots for my teaser trailer.

Storyboard

Here is my storyboard for my teaser trailer: "Home". I am not a very good drawer so I have tried my best to explain how I want my teaser trailer to look through stickmen! There are a few shots on my storyboard such as shot 2 and 3 that I won't be able to decide how they look until the editing stage, once I get to that stage I am going to try it out and see if they fit in with the other shots. Also for shots 14, 16 and 18 I will not know how they will look until the editing stage, because I am going to film the same shot of the young girl running from different angles and then cut from them between the last few shots, I hope that this can look effective and create the feeling that I hope to create. Once I have filmed all the shots on my storyboard, I might film a few extra shots of some ideas that I'm still not too sure about. If I do this then it will give me more shots to chose from whilst editing and allow me see which one looks best.

Target audience

Target Audience on Prezi

Synopsis

The plot for my film is a story of a young girl who thought she had everything and was as happy as ever, living with her mum at home. But then her family began to change and fall apart when her mum met a new man and strangely fell in love with him, even though he was a drug addict and verbally and physically abused her family. My film follows the story of Evie Becks - the young girl and how she can't take how things are at home anymore, so she decides to runaway to try and stand on her own two feet, at just the age off 11. Its killing her inside, but its something that she has to do.

Influences

The influences that I have for my teaser trailer are "Precious", "My Sister's Keeper" and "Hostel 2". They are 3 very different films, but each of them have aspects that really interested me and inspired me with ideas for my teaser trailer.

Starting with "Precious". "Precious" is a drama made in 2009 about a teenage girl who is pregnant with her second child, gets abused by her mother and can't find happiness. Its a very sad story. It was the genre of this trailer that influenced me, it was really powerful and completely captured me. It has a similar story to my teaser trailer in the way that it follows the journey of a young girl with family problems and trying to find a way to cope, although its killing her inside. I also want my trailer to feel as powerful as "Precious" felt, by delivering the genre correctly and capturing peoples emotions. Here is the trailer for "Precious":



Next is "My Sister's Keeper". "My Sister's Keeper" is a drama made in 2009 about a close family where the parents conceived their youngest daughter to save their eldest daughters life, who has cancer and is dying. The film follows each character and how they are coping with whats happening to their family and the girls illness. Its also a very sad story. It was the structure of this trailer that influenced me, it was really well put together and it really interested me how it changed the feeling of the film in a short space of time, by having happy and light scenes in slow motion and then having dark and sad scenes. This is an effect that I want to create in my teaser trailer. Here is the trailer for "My Sister's Keeper":





Finally its "Hostel 2"."Hostel 2" is a horror film made in 2007 about 4 students who go to stay in a Hostel together thinking that they're going to have a great holiday but what they don't know is that the people in the Hostel like to torture, rape and kill whoever comes in. Although this trailer is completely different to my idea, it was the microaspects that influenced me. The way that the camera had different shots of objects that signified the genre of the film. I thought that this was really effective, because it told the audience a bit about the film but without giving it away. I would like to use this idea in my teaser trailer, by maybe having some shots of things to signify the young girl. It also influenced me by the way that the end of the trailer has noise on a black screen. I would also like to use this idea by having a black screen with the noise of argueing, I think that this would be really effective because sometimes hearing the drama but not seeing it makes it sound more serious. Here is the teaser trailer for "Hostel 2":

Initial Ideas

At first I considered following the action/thriller genre and doing a film similar to "The Lovely Bones" and "Man On Fire", a story about a young girl gone missing. But then I had a change of mind as I thought that attempting to film an action film like this would be extremely difficult in terms of setting and props. So I thought about the different genres that I could do and I settled with drama. My idea is a family drama based on a young girl who thought she had everything and was as happy as ever, and then her mum began to change and her family was never the same again. A film following her story of how she couldn't take it anymore, her life changed and she had to learn to look after herself, at just the age of 11.

I chose this genre because its my favourite genre, and I wanted to do something that I feel passionate about. I also like emotional films and I want to portray the emotions that other dramas do in my teaser trailer. I think it will be very interesting to film this idea and put it all together to become an effective teaser trailer.

The characters that I have in mind for my teaser trailer are Evie Becks - the young girl, Nicola Becks - the mum of Evie and Tom Strade - Nicolas new boyfriend.

What is a teaser trailer?

In class we watched five examples of teaser trailers. Each one of them were different, this gave us an overview of some of the things that we can use for our teaser trailer.

The first one was "Inception":



The teaser trailer for this film had no dialogue in it, it was all based on action and building suspense with the non diegetic sound. It showed lots of shots of objects and people with strange things happening to them, this got the audience wondering what was going on, got them thinking and wanting to know more. It emphasised its names and titles a lot, this may have been to highlight the stars in the film, which created star power. Also to highlight the fact that it was from the same director of another successful film: The Dark Knight. Many teaser trailers don't have dialogue in them; its a great way to tease the audience about a new upcoming film and creates awareness that the film is being released soon.

I thought that this trailer of Inception was very well put together and made me want to watch the film and know more. I especially liked the words that came up explaining parts of the film and giving a clue to what it may be about. This inspired me and gave me an idea for my practical production. Because once I have the full plan of my teaser trailer, I want to use words coming up on screen to give the audience a feel of what could happen:

The second teaser trailer that we watched was "Cemetery Junction":

This teaser trailer was very different to others, it had absoloutely no scenes from the film in it. Instead it had the directors and one of the actors talking to the camera, behind a white background. It was a big risk for them to do this because the audience may have seen it and not taken much notice of it because didn't include any clips or pictures from the film. But it may have also worked for some people who are fans of those directors and actors, it may have interested them in wondering what the film was going to be like with these people directing it.

Personally, in my teaser trailer I don't want to take this risk because i'm relying on genre more than star power; and Cemetery Junctions trailer had the benefits of star power.

The third teaser trailer that we watched was "Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind":

This teaser trailer had quite a lot of dialogue in it but still managed not to give a lot away. Because there were lots of weird stuff happening such as a bed on a beach, and a shrunken man, etc. This confused the audience in to thinking what was happening and got them entrigued to know more. This is similar to the first teaser trailer that we watched: Inception. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind had a non diegetic sound and layout that was quite up beat and funky, which suggested that the genre may be a light comedy. It also captured the audience by drawing attention to the titles. It showed about six very famous actors names, this gave the it star power. This is also similar to the way that Inception drew attention to their titles and gained star power for their teaser trailer.

The fourth teaser trailer that we watched was "Paranormal Activity":

This teaser trailer was also quite different to usual teaser trailers. It showed a large audience that was the first audience to watch Paranormal Activity. It showed them in the cinema and filmed their reaction. I think that this teaser trailer was really well done by the way that it focused a lot on its genre, because it was a low budget film and didn't have any star power, so by focusing on its horror genre it attracted a very large audience and was highly successful. By having this audience in the teaser trailer, it showed how scary the film is and made people want to come and experience it. They also had quotes from film critics to emphasise how scary this film is.

The fifth teaser trailer that we watched was "Live Free or Die Hard":



This teaser trailer contained a lot of action and hardly any dialogue, again; similar to Inception. Live Free or Die Hard used interesting shots of cities in black and white changing in to colour, and then lots of violence and action happening. For the first part of the shots of the city, it was quite quiet and slow, and then the words came up "Live Free", and then in the second part it was quite loud and fast, and the words came up "or Die Hard". I think that this was a good way of showing the title because it linked it to what was happening in the film. I think that the action that this teaser trailer used was very effective, because it was dramatic, loud and with lots of explosions, and films like this usually attract a wide audience because they like to see a lot of drama and action on screen. It also had some star power, which it used in the middle of the teaser trailer and at the end. In the middle some of the titles came up with various famous actors and the last shot was of those actors. This made the audience interested in seeing a big action film with these actors in it.