Finished Filming

We have now finished all of all filming and can now start editing and putting all of the trailer together. We can now start to concentrate on creating a studio ident and a production company for our trailer and creating a film poster and a film magazine front cover to complete our promotional package. 

Filming 13th December

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-p0st31tk4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ylUE6h-3M

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO9RB9GZ6rw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYzo9GDscog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYzo9GDscog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TD6p-RYDRc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hUd4IorIGo

Today, we filmed the rest of the audition scenes with Miranda, Greg, Millie and Kieran. Once again, we had to set up the black curtain as the background and use the lightin system in the school system to create the spotlight effect. 

Filming 10th December

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXE9pOiZzBU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjh3LbcNqg4

Today, we filmed scenes around the school that show the conflict between the two girls. We also started to film the sabotage scenes where Miranda comes into the toilet with her make-up bag and whilst she in the toilets, Millie comes into the toilet and robs Miranda's makeup. We also filmed scenes in the corridor where Miranda is with Greg to make Millie jealous and then Millie goes off crying. We also filmed Millie running out of her audition in a really happy mood and doing a crazy run, which emphasises her geeky character. 

Filming 6th December

Today, we filmed scenes that will be played after Greg's audition to show how popular he is in school and how all the girls obsess over him and fancy him. In both scenes, they shout 'OMG he's so fit!' and I think this helps the audience to understand that his character is supposed to be the most popular boy in school. We haven't decided which one we're going to use yet. 

Filming 4th December

Today, we filmed the panel scenes. We got three teachers who were willing to take part and we had to use a table and 3 chairs and placed them in front of the black curtain in the school hall to make it seem like they're in the same place as the auditionees at the same time. We filmed each reaction for each of the auditions and I think the use of the panel is really effective and adds comedy to the trailer.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcykKGE1aM4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbLrsyayy1E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaSXd0S9DuY

Filming- 3rd December

Today, we filmed some more of the audition scenes. Once again we had to set up the spotlight in the school hall after we booked the use of the hall for lunchtimes. We filmed with Natalie today, the girl who is supposed to be awful. We filmed her audition and her reactions to the judges. Although we haven't actually filmed the judges scenes yet, we know that they're going to have a bad reaction to her audition and the head judge is going to shout 'USELESS' so we wanted to get a reaction shot of Natalie crying. Also today, we filmed with Penny and Mollie who are singing and dancing and one of them goes wrong and so they have a big argument and storm out. We wanted to incorporate a scene like this into our trailer because on shows like the X factor and Britain's got Talent there is always an act that goes completely wrong and has a massive argument. 

Filming- 1st December 2011

In this filming session, we decided to film the corridor scene where the geeky girl, Millie , is walking down the corridor minding her own business when a group of people also walk down the corridor the opposite way towards her. The main person in this group of people, Kieran, trips her up so that she drops her folder and all the sheets in her hand and they end up on the floor in a mess. Kieran and his group of friends all laugh at her and mock her and single her out so that everyone thinks she's just a geeky nobody with no friends. Millie, in shock, then quickly picks up all of her sheets and her folder and makes a quick exit through the side doors, looking visibly upset.

We also filmed the contrasting scene to the one where Millie's folder gets knocked out of her hand. We wanted to show the complete difference in the two character's personalities and status within the school so we filmed Miranda walking down the corridor with her friends behind her and all the kids in the corridor move out of the way because she's so popular.

Filming- Wednesday 23rd November 2011

On wednesday, we began filming the audition scenes of our film. Firstly, we had to set up the location before we even began filming. To do this, we asked for the use of the main hall so we could film. In the hall, there is black curtains behind and in front of the stage that are normally used for the school show in February so I thought this would be of great benefit with creating a location that looked like an audition room for a school show. We filmed our auditions with a black curtain at the back of the frame. We then used the lighting facilities in the school hall to create a spotlight effect so that the main person auditioning was the only focus and that the importance of the person in the centre of the frame was emphasised. To create the spotlight we made the room as dark as possible and then used a light unit that consisted of two spotlights a distance apart and shone these lights on the black curtain to create a spotlight effect. We could move these spotlights around, bringing them closer to the subject of the frame or further away to make the shot look as professional as possible. Me and my Andrea directed all audition scenes, we told them where to stand and how to perform. We also told them what songs to sing and how to sing it so that everything was done the way we wanted it to be done. We only managed to get one scene done today because it was a first filming session but I am really happy with how things turned out. The links to the two scenes we filmed are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsmsiO-vLF0

                                            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuzOBeT93hA

PLANNING

Here is our planning for the first few filming sessions, I hope it all goes to plan! 










Week beginning the 21st November:
Characters:
Miranda - Geeky girl
Millie- popular girl
Greg- popular boy
Natalie- bad auditonee
Beth- young auditonee
Kieran- dancing audition, even though it's a singing competition




Scenes to be filmed
Wednesday 23rd November: filming the 5 auditions in the hall with a spotlight.
* Need to ask Miranda and Millie if they're free in one of our media lessons (preferably Tuesday period 4)
* Need to ask sixth formers who are willing to be in our film to take part in the scene where pupils move aside for the popular girl and where they make fun of the geeky girl and trip her up
* Need to speak to Greg and Miranda about bringing in their costumes
* SCRIPT for the teachers on the auditioning panel. Need to work out how the panel is going to react to each audtionee so that their reaction translates to the audience so they can gather who is good and who is not.
* Close-up of Miranda's face in her audition to establish her geeky character and enable this characterisation to translate over to the audience.






Week beginning the 28th November:
* Need to create a castlist that will be used on the last shot of the film when the two girls are walking up to it to see who has got the part and who has missed out- critical that the audience do not see the cast list as it is a teaser trailer and the end of the film must not be given away, creates a sense of mystery and will pursuade the audience to actually go out and watch the film after watching the teaser trailer.
* This week is deteremental in getting the sabotage scenes completed between Lucy and Miranda and this will be the funny side of the romantic comedy teaser trailer.

Scripting

As our film is going to be a teaser trailer, there isn't going to be much dialogue needed, compared to a short film.  Also, most of the dialogue we will be using will come from the auditions and where the person auditioning is singing so the dialogue in that sense will be a song. There is going to be little dialogue as you don't want to give too much of the film away and so teaser trailer's normally only use the most important dialogue to gain an understanding of what the film is about and especially in romantic comedies, the funniest lines in the film are often used in the teaser trailer to lure the audience in to go and see the rest of the film.

Since creating this, we have changed Miranda from the geeky girl to the popular girl as we have asked another girl, Millie to play the geeky girl as we feel that these two will interact really well together and can both play their respective parts excellently.

With regards to scripting, there isn't really going to be much speaking in our trailer as it is mostly singing. We have allowed the auditionees to sing whatever they want. 

Beth Holmes sings 'Changed for good' from Wicked

Miranda sings 'Zombie' by the Cranberries

Natalie sings 'Listen' by Beyonce

Millie sings 'You can't stop the beat' from Hairspray

The few lines in the trailer are:

One of the judges calling Natalie 'useless'

Miranda asking 'what's the lead and when do I get the script?'

The rest is mostly reactions from the judges as each audition occurs such as them being in shock and them giggling when Kieran tries to dance and completely goes wrong and falls into the camera. 

Costumes

In our trailer, we have three main characters: Miranda the popular girl, Millie the geeky girl and Greg the most popular boy in school. We are going to be quite stereotypical with our characters in what they look like and how they act. The costumes they were are extremely important in how they are portrayed to the audience and building up a characterisation and a relationship with the audience based on what they look like. What they look like will be the first thing the audience sees so it's important that they realise who is the geeky girl and who is the popular girl which is fairly easy to distinguish.

Trying out the cameras

Today, I have been having a practice with the cameras and just filming lots of random stuff that has no relevance to our trailer but I have found it really useful as the video cameras and the tripods are new equipment that I haven't really used before so I thought it would be really good idea to have a practice session with the cameras so I could get used to them and know how they work and I have been really impressed! The cameras are of a really good quality and work with the tripod excellently and so from this, I will take real confidence when I use the cameras for the real filming for the trailer and because I know the equipment is of the highest quality that I know my trailer will be of a good quality at the finished product.

Props

There are many different props that we intend to use in our teaser trailer. The auditionees for the show need a microphone to create the effect of a real audition.
Also, in the audition scenes we have to use the lighting systems in the school hall as we want to create a spotlight effect on each person singing so that all the audience's attention is on them.
When it comes to costumes, Miranda, the popular girl's costume, will be very sophisticated and everyone will look up to her and want to look up to her. She's stunning and her whole appearance will be perfect; make-up, hair and clothes.
The character of Greg, the popular boy, will have a costume that is very rocky. He will do his audition with a guitar because he loves to play this and will come across as the 'jock' sort of character with a leather jacket and the sweep-across hair.
The character of Millie, the geeky girl, will fulfill what a stereotypical 'geek' will look like. She will wear glasses and dress very geeky so that everyone makes fun of her.
Other props also include make-up, that will be stolen in the sabotage scenes.
We also will use folders and other utensils used in schools to bring across the idea that this film is being set in a school.
The judge's panel in the audition scenes will be sitting on chairs behind a table so for those scenes we will need a table and some chairs and clipboards and pencils so they can write things down during the audition so to give off the effect of a real audition.
We also need to create a cast list that will be used at the end of the trailer. We have to create this because the two girls will walk up to the castlist up on the board to find out who has gotten the main part. However, the audience will not be able to see who has got the part so that the curiosity is built up so much that the audience have to go and watch the film to see who gets the part.

Synopsis

The plot of our teaser trailer begins in a school hall with the auditions for the school show. The most popular boy in school, Greg, is auditioning for the main male part and so two girls, Miranda and Millie, audition to get the main female part because they fancy Greg and want to get the main female part to spend time with him. Both girls have amazing voices and they both get great comments off the judging panel of teachers. There is also a montage of other auditions, including a wonderful audition from a year 7 girl, an awful audition from a year 13 pupil who thinks she can sing when she cant, and a dancing audition from a year 13 boy who doesn't realise it's a singing competition. Miranda is the most popular girl in school and expects to get the main part and so can't believe it when Millie, the geekiest girl in school has an amazing voice. Miranda sets about to sabotage Millie's chances at getting the main female part in the show and vice versa.They do this by robbing each other's make up, being seen with Greg, kissing Greg, getting tripped up and dropping folders in the corridor, getting laughed at etc etc. The teaser trailer will end with the two girls walking up to the cast list, with their heads covering the cast list so that the audience cannot see who got the part and so have to go and watch the rest of the film to find out what happens.

Locations and mise-en-scene

The first scene in our teaser trailer will be an establishing shot of the school so that the audience know where the film is going to be set and where all of the action is going to take place. 

The majority of our locations that we will be using to film our teaser trailer will take place in a school environments. The auditions for the school show will take place in the main hall of the the school or in the dance studio. This location will be interior and will show the inside of the school hall.

There will also be locations in school hallways when the popular character, Miranda,  walks down the corridor and all of the pupils move out of the way in awe because she is so popular and when the geeky character, Millie, walks down the corridor and gets laughed at and tripped up.

There will be many interior locations used for the sabotaging scenes including the toilet where make-up is stolen and where Millie sees Miranda with Greg and goes off crying.  

Results from Questionnaire

From our questionnaire we were pleased to find that everyone romantic comedies. The audience expect to find a good storyline, with a female protagonist and a male protagonist their either start out as friends or completely hating each other. The questionnaire found that there were a lot of people who said that Mean Girls was their favourite romantic comedy and others mentioned were Along Came Polly, Shallow Hal and Love Actually which are all very successful romantic comedies. 
The most popular certificate that are target audience go to see is 15's and 12A'sThis will be taken into account when we come to put a certificate on our film to make sure it appeals to the target audience.

 

The final result I will comment on is the promotion and how people find out about new films. The most common answers were the internet, the trailers before a film they go to see and posters. This will be important information so that we know how to market our film so that the target audience want to see it.

Film Questionnaire

This is the film questionnaire we distributed to our target audience. 

What gender are you?

Male          female

How old are you? ………..

What is your favourite movie genre?

Romantic comedy      comedy        horror     scifi      action/adventure

Other (please specify) …………….

Do you like romantic comedies?

Yes      No

What do you like about them?

…………………………………………………………

What don’t you like about them?

………………………………………………………..

What do you expect from a good romantic comedy?

…………………………………………….

What is your favourite romantic comedy?

…………………………………………..

What is your least favourite romantic comedy?

………………………………………….

Progression

The progression of my film trailer is now coming together, and I have research different key terms for the conventions of a romantic comedy which I can follow to create my own romantic comedy teaser trailer. 

For the Narrative of my film I have to follow the ‘Five Step Structure’

Exposition – This is the opening premise which sets the scene.

Development – Now the situation is built on and moved forward.

Complication – An event has to change the situation.

Climax – Everything is now coming together after a decisive point.

Resolution – Finally, the outcome is reached. (This won't be used in my media trailer as this convention is mainly used in short films.

By following this structure I am able to compose a well controlled trailer. However, I may choose to subvert some of these conventions and go against what people might expect from a romantic comedy to make the trailer more tense as audiences often like a twist in a story line. 

No Strings Attached Trailer