We have characters?

As a group we have decided to set our minds on creating characters for the teaser trailer. Researching from the other professional movie trailers these are very specific characters. There is a main character that either is trying to establish the effects of the infection or is trying to cure the disease in order to save mankind. This character is often labelled as a leader or a hero. The other type of character that is established within the trailers is a very vulnerable character, a character that needs looking after and being taken care of, often is a child or an animal. The last type of character is a helper, someone that is very aware of the infection and teaches the main character of the situation. The helper often holds the responsibility of the group and passes that over to the main character.

Our task was to think of characters and the roles of which that will partake over the course of the teaser trailer. After a lot of discussion these are the characters we have an idea of using.

James Greenwood:

• The main character within the film
• The film centres on his struggle to come to terms with the apocalypse, and life beyond the apocalypse.
• James is a very strong willed character, a natural leader who naturally then becomes the leader of the survivor group
• Instantly attached to Amelia/Jake and feels a sense of responsibility towards keeping him/her safe.
• Develops a strong friendship with Jonah, who is the first survivor he encounters, but seems to have different opinions on different scenarios.
• James develops feelings for another member of the group, Anna. She is always on the forefront of James’ mind. Although this leads to ‘hard’ decisions for James regarding the infant character.
• He is the most physically able and is the best fighter in the group.

Jonah:

·         Another member of the group (The oldest member)

·         One of the more respected members of the group, his opinion is highly valued by all the members of the group

·         He is the groups ‘Brainiac’ he seems to have the most knowledge and this shows within computers, electronics and has a mechanical know-how

·         He seems to be more interested in survival more than anything else.

·         Develops feeling towards Katie

·         Initially feels that the child character is a burden on the group and will possibly get them killed.

·         Was a member of a survival group which was lead by a leading Dr. Dr R.P.Jones

Anna:

• Her actions and clumsiness frequently get the group into a lot of trouble between the group and the infected, and is often being saved by the group.
• A very attractive girl who grabs the attention of both male members of the group
• Develops a strong relationship with the child character, but initially doesn’t have the best of relationships with the child’s older sister, Katie.

Katie:

• The ‘Tomboy’ of the group, in comparison to Anna
• She is moderately attractive, but is constantly overlooked due to Anna being in the group.
• Her younger sister/brother is the ‘child’ character in the group. This brings a lot of relationship struggles within the group, due to Jonah’s attraction to her but also his feelings about the brother/sister being a burden on the group
• Is often tempted to leave the group but is aware of how damaging it might possibly be to her little brother/sister

Amelia/Jake

• Typical 8 year old boy/girl who like nothing more than just to play about and not really have a care in the world even with the apocalypse
• Is oblivious most of the time to the trouble the group regularly find themselves in
• Is very close to her/his sister although she is friendly with all the other members of the group, even Jonah who does not like him/her being in the group.

These are the characters we intend to use within our movie trailer as we feel it is appropriate to follow the codes and conventions used with the professional trailers of which we have researched. 

Apocalypse has a Synopsis?

Below is a short synopsis of which my group and I have had great discussion about and this is our final idea:

‘The film begins after a worldwide sickness which has infected all adults, turning them into zombie like creatures. The surviving children have formed a number of groups throughout London in order to better combat the threat posed by the adults and to increase their odds of survival.

A teenager, James Greenwood awakes to find this epidemic on going and struggles to cope with the imposing task of having to ‘find his own way’. James is initially unaware the sickness only infected the adults and tries to search for his parents and siblings of whom are presumed to be dead because of the epidemic.

Along the way he comes across a variety of different teenagers, four of whom, Anna, Katie, her younger sibling and Jonah, join him on his journey to form a group that works together to continue to survive day by day.’

The Pitch is fast approaching…

It is almost the time where my group and I have to present our ideas to our teachers by doing a pitch. We have to include all of our ideas from the synopsis to the types of characters. We have to provide storyboard, production schedule, location shots and draft work for our ancillary tasks. We have had a meeting to see if we are on track to present our work, it seems that we have some more things to complete but we know we will succeed and get given the go ahead to put our ideas on to screen.  

How do I create a professional Film Poster?

For our Ancillary task I have been tasked to create a film poster of which advertises Apocalypse. I have undergone some research which will enable me to produce a professional movie poster that will support my group and I teaser trailer.

I have looked at some existing film posters of which match our genre and analysed the codes and conventions of which I can incorporate into my poster.

Mirrors

This film poster for instance, you can clearly tell that this is a horror film poster as it is very dark and can only see the eyes of the character involved. This character is making eye contact with the target audience which helps drag them in to look more into the poster. Also it doesn’t let off much about the film, it has its main features such as the name of the film, the main star which stars in the film, the tagline, the date of release of which doesn’t specify the day only month and year, and the credits of which include the production company, director etc. I like the way in which the poster is dark and isn’t very revealing, and this could be a possible feature of which I include within my film poster.

I am Legend

  

This film poster doesn’t let off that much at all. We, as an audience, are established to the location and the main character. The name of the character is at the top of the poster in a serif font which stands out from the rest of the page. The title of the film lies at the bottom of the poster above the credits. The tagline also in a serif font is smaller than the title and the characters name which shows the importance of the other two elements. By this poster you can clearly see the sense of isolation and that the world has come to an end. You can feel a sense of fear and horror within the characters body language and the establishing shot of the emptiness location in the background.

Zombieland

The film poster establishes the four main characters that are involved within the film. The characters that are established are all holding weapons which suggests to the audience that they are battling for something, which is supported by the burning of the location which is in the background. The title of the film is very clear and bold to the audience as it is in a fiery orange font colour which also suggests a sense of war and battle. The way the characters suggests a little about the characters as in who are more dominant and who are less dominant. The way the title is aligned also makes it stand out. The date of release is in a red font colour which helps identify that for the audience.

I shall try to incorporate different elements within my movie poster as there are certain qualities that I feel can help advertise Apocalypse, help identify the genre of which it is in and help the audience be intrigued by the film and will make them want to watch it.  

There's other ways to advertise Apocalypse?

There are other ways to promote films other than a trailer, these can include on the radio, television, websites, posters, magazines and billboards. A task has just be published that we have to produce two Ancillary Tasks which is totally individual and includes creating two of the following:

• Create a poster
• Create a webpage
• Create a front cover for a film magazine

I have decided to create a poster and a front cover for a film magazine. I believe that I will strengthen my grade for this project as in the past this has been my strong point throughout my history studying Media Studies. For my GCSE, the project was to create two movie magazine of which I was able to achieve an A* in the particular project. Last year for the AS project, a music magazine had to be created including a front cover, contents page and double page spread, I was able to achieve an A for this part of the project. I think I have the knowledge and understanding for these advertising roles to put into creating these ancillary tasks. 

What do we choose?

In our first meeting as a group we decided to research into the genre and watch some movie trailers to get more of an understanding of what we were about to create. In our second meeting, of which this blog post is about, we have decided to think of a name for our film idea. We have also decided to think up a synopsis of the film, what characters and what sort of characters will be included and what type of locations.

For this meeting we have decided to concentrate on naming our film/trailer. There were a variety of different name ideas including:

• Apocalypse
• Nerve Agent Z
• Virus 999
• The End of the Road
• Survival
• World at War
• E.N.D 

As a group we decided to create a short-list of names of which stood out to us, the included Apocalypse, Nerve Agent Z and Virus 999. After a great amount of discussion during the meeting and the vision we had for our trailer, we concluded with a working title of Apocalypse. We labelled it as a ‘Working Title’ as we were uncertain as we hadn’t thought of a synopsis as of yet, and hoped that this would inspire us to draft up a astonishing idea for the final piece. 

Who will we aim our trailer at?

My group and I are certain that we would like to pursue with creating a teaser trailer involving a post apocalyptic universe of which would be involving zombies. Our next task was to generate a target audience for the teaser trailer/film. IMDB.com has a top ten film list for post apocalyptic films of which involves:

1.      A Boy and his Dog

2.      I Am Legend

3.      Armageddon

4.      28 Days Later

5.      Doomsday

6.      Equilibrium

7.      28 Weeks Later

8.      Judgement Day

9.      12 Monkeys

10.  The Road

I thought that it would be a good idea to find on average the age rating for this top 10 list of films and the one in which would be more popular, would then finalise our age rating for our film. The result of the average age rating was a 15. Also we have decided that we will be targeting the trailer at a male audience as this genre is more popular within the male audience.

This so happened that my group and I were thinking of creating the teaser trailer for this age group and audience as it seems that this genre is more popular within this age bracket. I undertook some of my own research and surveyed 20 people from each age group, 15-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41+. Below are the results of my independent surveys: