Progress Report v1

Recently, we have been quite busy with filming and editing. We have around half of the trailer edited to a rough standard, and we are also still doing some more sound research as we have found we don't like one of the songs we had originally chosen. We also have some more to filming to do, we should have all our main filming done by Tuesday, with some time to film anything else we feel we may need.

Headshots

We decided that we want our headshots to look professional, and fit the theme of our film.

Pip Lashko-Sayers

Pip plays the main character, Luke Pine. Because the film is a dark action film, we decided that his headshot should be in black and white, while making him look like an edgy character.

Tommy Mercer

Tommy plays Luke's adopted father, Stephen Morgan. Stephen is a good guy, and welcomes Luke into his home. This is why we decided to add a sepia effect to Tommy's headshot, as it makes it feel warmer compared to the other headshots.

Joe Reddie

Joe plays Luke's real dad, Max. Max is an elderly character with an injury, he is also smart and wise. For this reason, we gave Joe's headshot a black and white colour scheme. The pose is also helpful in reflecting Max's personality.

Nathan Sinclair

Nathan will play one of Max's henchmen, so we decided to make him look edgy in this headshot. Once again, the black and white reflects the theme of our trailer.

Sean Williams

Sean will play Max's other henchmen, so we kept a similar theme to what we used in Nathan's headshot. Both are wearing suits because this will match their attire in the trailer.

Jake Fisher

As of yet, Jake doesn't have a role in the film, and his headshot was taken just in case he was to feature in the trailer. We kept the same theme to the other headshots as well.

Auditions

Before we started filming, we auditioned 4 of our potential actors, here's how it went:

We decided on the following actors parts:
Pip - Luke Pine
Tommy - Stephen Morgan
Joe - Max Pine

We decided we didn't need Jake, and he will be working the camera for the majority of the time.

Animated Storyboard

This is our animated storyboard, along with the self-titled soundtrack we plan to use.

Schedule

Schedule

This is our schedule for how, when and where we plan to film our trailer. We don't plan to film this all in one day, rather over a period of 2/3 weeks.

Storyboard

Storyboard

Our storyboard shows the order of the clips in our trailer, along with some shot directions and music information. Although rough, it shows what we plan to do in our film.

Transcript

Shot of raining sky

Logos BL2 Inc, Edition Limited, E5Y Productions

(Typing sounds, Foley rain on window)

STEPHEN MORGAN: Luke... Luke (Shouting). Dinner's ready.

TEXT: WHAT WOULD // YOU DO 

LUKE PINE: (Panics and closes Laptop) yeah... yeah Dad, coming.

STEPHEN: Okay Luke, come along now.

TEXT: IF YOU FELT // ALL ALONE

LUKE: (Voice Over, Reading from Letter)

TEXT: Directed By Jake Fisher

LUKE: (Voice over matches up with shot)

HENCHMAN: He's left.

TEXT: WHAT WOULD // YOU DO

(Soundtrack starts, quietly)

TEXT: IF YOUR LIFE // WAS A LIE

MAX: Just in time for your first assignment... Son.

(Soundtrack gets suddenly louder to match with shots)

(Gunshot, soundtrack cuts out)

LUKE: Where is she!? (Shouting angrily)

LUKE:  What you're doing is wrong

MAX: Every day you sound more like your mother

(Soundtrack comes back)

TEXT: WHAT WOULD // YOU DO

TEXT: IF YOU // WERE A

TEXT: LONG TIME DEAD

(Music Stops)

PERSON: Where did you get that gun

(Music Continues)

TEXT: COMING THIS FALL

CREDITS

Location Shots

With our film trailer this year, we are using a few locations, one of which is a warehouse that Jake's Dad has, although we can't immediately get pictures of our locations, we can get some from google maps, here is the warehouse we will be filming in:

Whilst I was on Google Maps, I took a picture of my house as well, as we will be filming in and outside there: 

We are also going to have a few shots in/near school, most likely a shot where we run out the common room / out the school:

Fake Newspaper

For our production there is a segment in which we need a fake newspaper about a car crash, so I created this newspaper image for us to use:

It only needs to be on screen for a very short amount of time but we felt we should at least make it look realistic enough for when it's on.

Soundtrack

We have discussed our soundtrack in depth, in our first film we used a free dubstep song, but after we had finished making it we changed our opinion on how much we liked it, and would have preferred a chip-tune song such as this:



In terms of our film this time, the genre is vastly different. We have decided something heavier, and Jake's Dad is in a metal band and this is an old version of the song we strongly believe we'll use. We went as far as to use the name of this song to name our production, as the main character's life is a lie, he might as well have been a "Long Time Dead".



Before we had decided this we started looking at the artist we used last year, and similar people to him, in this case Noisestorm and Approaching Nirvana






We are still discussing as to when in the trailer the music will play but we will probably decide the exact times when it comes to editing and what looks and feels right.

After some research we have found that Crank 2: High Voltage uses similar music to us, in both genre and timing.

Update - 19/10/12

We have decided that we want to use more than one song, as well as using different genres.

Here are the songs we are thinking of using in our trailer at this point:

Influences

Our film is to be a dark action film, so we have found some other films which are similar to the genre and general theme of the film we have in mind.

The Dark Knight series

The first of these is The Dark Knight / The Dark Knight Rises, which are both fairly similar films in terms of theme and genre, in that they are both very dark, and dramatic, and include hints of comedy, something we would like to emulate.

These are some shots from the Dark Knight trilogy that we quite like, as you can see they are all either dramatic and/or dark in some way, and this is what we aim to achieve with our production.

Because The Dark Knight is going to be such an influence for us, we decided to break down the first trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. This breakdown will give us a good structure on how to edit our trailer together, as well as the speed of the trailer.

Taken

When we first started to brainstorm our production, we decided that Taken would be a big influence for our film from the off.

After planning our film, we decided that the music used in this trailer will be a big influence for us. At first, there is a clear lack of a soundtrack, just non-diagetic sound effects to emphasise the titles.

This seems to be a typical feature of action trailers, and it is one we want to use in our production. The soundtrack kicks in around 50 seconds into the trailer, and is followed by short take, fast paced editing.

Just before the end of the trailer, there is a drop in the music which we really want to incorporate into our production.

The music after this has taken place is also effective, we also might want to do this. Overall, Taken will be a huge influence for us not only in terms of genre, but also soundtrack.

Looper

The introduction to Looper is very good, roughly the first opening 40 seconds. This includes the production logos and some interesting use of sound. We want to use a similar technique with the sound, and although the production logo is very unique and interesting, we won't be using a technique like this because Looper is more Sci-Fi while our film will be more drama, so we are't going to look into this film as much.

Crank 2: High Voltage

We also now have an influence for our sound, Crank 2:

At around 1:50 a heavier song kicks in when the title "Jason Statham" comes in, and the music then continues until the end of the film, usually syncing up with certain moments within the trailer such as punches. The music also cuts out at the end, in which there is a small comedic shot, something we would like to do.