Concept and synopsis

Working title:  prowler

Genre: Suspense

Concept:
This movie is about a naive girl who after attending a part she cannot recall is stalked by someone who is after a package she has. In the party the stalker slips a date rape drug in her drink and hand her the package but before he could retrieve it back, the girl manages to get away. Now she is being stalked by many unknown people and has no memory of that night and that party whatsoever.

 

Deciding our audience beforehand

How did we decide our target audience ?

Before we decided our audience, the three of us sat and made a check list for choosing the right audience.
1. Who are the viewers we will be addressing?

• Girls and Boys 

2. What age group?

• 15 - 25

3. Are they male, female, or both?

• Both

4. What educational background?

• They all go to English medium schools, have information about sports, they must all see sports in their school.

5. What socioeconomic status?

• Teenagers who come from Lower-middle class to upper-higher class.

6. What values, prejudices, assumptions do they have about life?

• (To have a larger audience we decided that) They can be mentally healthy and happy people, depressed, courageous, ambitious, the film can be watched by people who like sports and play some kind of sport and the people who do not.

7. Where do our viewers stand on the issue we are showing about?

• They can be positive, negative or have no idea about sports or the problems that girls face while playing a sport. The film is not that technical based.

8. Do they know anything about it?

• They should know something at least. Most of the teenagers do know what squash is.

9. If so, how might they have learned about it?

• Through media, school, someone in the family, social circle etc.

10. Is there anything we have in common with our viewers on the issue?

• Our viewers are going to be of our age group, hence we understand what people of our age group go through in our society especially girls. We are enthusiastic about making a film on a girl who plays squash in a country like Pakistan, we think our viewers would be enthusiastic too since a game like Squash has never been brought up before in any film industry on large scale.

11. How do we want our viewers to view the issue?

• We want them to view it positively as we want the film to encourage people towards squash positively.

12. If they are hostile to our view, can we persuade them to see the issue our way?

• Yes we can, through an excellent direction and storyline.

Recci shots

 Below are the shots of the location of the home of our main character and of squash court where she and the coach will be practicing squash

Squash court

Main Protagonist's Dressing table

 

Main Protagonist's Bedroom

We plan on visiting more locations and taking more pictures

Response we recieved from a second set of questionnaires

Below are the responses we received from our second questionnaire particularly focusing on the choice of movies watched by our audience.

The age group of the respondents

The gender of the respondents.

Media House

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (SPE) is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony. Its group sales in 2010 has been reported to be of $7.2 billion.

One of the holding of sony entertainment group is Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group With a library of more than 4,000 films as of 2004 this unit of Sony distributes about 22 films a year under its various studio brands in 67 countries. The group owns studio facilities in the United States, Hong Kong, Madrid, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Japan. In addition to the below company-owned brands, Columbia TriStar also has a contract to distribute films for independent Revolution Studios and select films by MGM and United Artists.

Columbia Pictures, Tristar pictures, Sony pictures India, Sony Pictures Classics , Screen gems, Truimph Films, Sony pictures home entertainment and etc.

Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Picture Entertainment's Columbia Tristar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation.

On September 16, 2002, Columbia TriStar Television became Sony Pictures Television, while three years earlier, in 1999, Screen Gems was resurrected as a fourth specialty film producing arm of Sony's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, after Sony Pictures Classics, Triumph Films and Destination Films. Screen Gems produces and releases "films that fall between the wide-release movies traditionally developed and distributed by Columbia Pictures and those released by Sony Pictures Classics." Many of its releases are of the horror, thriller, action, comedy and urban genres, making the unit similar to Dimension Films (part of The Weinstein Company), Hollywood Pictures (part of the Walt Disney Company), and Rogue Pictures (currently owned by Relativity Media, but distributed by former owners Universal Studios).
The most-successful Screen Gems film commercially as of November 2010 was Resident Evil: Afterlife, which grossed $296,221,566 in international box office receipts.

Screen Gems

• Screen Gems focuses on films that fall between the wide-release movies traditionally developed and distributed by Columbia Pictures and those released by Sony Pictures Classics
• Recent releases include: Friends with Benefits and Straw Dogs
• Upcoming releases include: Underworld Awakening and The Vow

source: http://www.sonypictures.com/corp/corporatefact.html#sg

Why screen gems?

The reason we chose screen gems to distribute our movies are because:

Screen gems has made and distributed several movies similar to the codes and conventions we are following in our movies. mainly slashers distributed by screen gems have female victims stalked by psychotic stalkers (antagonist). For example movies such as 'When a stranger calls' by Simon west, the protagonist a female shown clueless at first but then faces the dilemma and at the end takes down the antagonist by either killing him or sending him to jail.

Screen gems has mostly been profitable in distributing mainstream horror suspense films. Our movie is also mainstream and movies distributed by screen gems with similar codes and conventions have grossed approximately far more than the invested money for example the cost in prom night was 20 million while the revenue generated was 57 million

with screen gems as our distributor we can reach to our designated audience as the movies made by screen gems are usually targeted towards adolescents and adults in in the age group of 20-35 years who like to watch horror/slasher

movies made by screen gems represent everyday problems along with uncommon but potentially captivating conflicts For example, the Lakeview Terrace by Neil LaBute shows an abusive officer terrorizing his neighbors who are inter racially married. Another example 'In the Cut' directed by Jane Campion focuses on a college English professor (Ryan) who becomes entangled with a detective (Ruffalo) investigating a series of gruesome murders in her Manhattan neighborhood.

Screen gems is an ideal media house for us as screen gems is very much likely to purchase and distribute our movies and most of the movies to the audience we want to represent and have targeted.

The basic questions of audience research

 While researching we came across a website which included many helpful guidelines to conduct an audience research. at the end of the web-page we found a couple of questions and we though we should answer them to evaluate ho much we know about our audience. Some questions we may have not answered. 

1. How large is the audience - both as an average, and as the reach (number of different people)?

Since our move is main stream therefore we are targeting mass audience mainly including teenagers and adolescents for our movie

2. What kind of people make up the audience? How do they differ from the whole population - e.g. in terms of age group, sex, occupation, etc?

Our audience for the survey was made up of students between the age group of 15-30. There were more girls than boys. There were very few people in the age group of 20-30 who were teachers.

3. Where is your audience? In each part of your coverage area, what percentage of the population are members of your audience?

We have targeted teenagers in Pakistan and the survey we conducted was in our school where 80% of our target audience is found. Our potential watchers will be in such schools and homes in Pakistan

6. What type of content (e.g. radio and TV programs, newspaper articles) interests your audience most - and least?

The audience wanted something different and witty and they did not want to see any stereotypical theme of distress and problems like those shown in many teenage movie

7. What styles of presentation do your audience prefer, and what styles do they dislike?

Our audience preferred more attention grabbing graphics, music and different varienty of shots. They wanted a trailer that was more fast paced.

8. Which activities, attitudes, and other effects do your publications cause among your audience?

Our previous movie made in AS gave a positive response from the audience as it also represented a teenager. However it was thought to be more slow paced and dull.

9. How will your audience react to a new kind of program or article that you might introduce?

Our audience showed a positive response to the survey we conducted and also in the focus group, they liked the trailers of the similar genre as our movie shown to them.

Problems and challenges faced by teenages

Before finalizing any storyline we first want to know our target audience well. Hence we are first researching on how our target audience is like and what are their preferences on watching a certain movie.

We distributed questionnaires to the A level students from Beacon house, who anonymously them. Although not everyone added more detail about the problems they faced, they however did at least specify the type of a problem. Furthermore while surfing on the internet, I found a couple of blogs that talked about teenage problems and challenges. The URL mentioned below is a website on teen adviser and they have short listed the most basic and common problems young adolescent face

http://www.teensadvisor.com/teen-problems.html

There is another website called www.at-risk org. They presented facts and statistic on depression faced by teenagers. In our questionnaire we saw that depression is a common problem amongst girls

http://www.at-risk.org/blog/916/statistics-and-fact-about-teen-depression-2/

I also found a couple of interesting pie chart's from a blog that showed how the thoughts of old and young females differ

Questionnaire on problems faced by teenagers.

Before Deciding on any proper story or Genre, we decided to first conduct a survey on the problems faced by teenagers so that we can realistically represent and portray Pakistani teenagers on our teaser. We distributed many questionnaires and below are some of the responses we received. Some however were shy and were not exactly specifying the problems they faced on that particular area. 

 

Below are the Responses we recieved.

 Most of the problems teenagers faced were related to studies. This questionnaire was distributed amongst A-level students and they found studies at this age,  more pressurizing. Second came relationship issues. There is quite a difference in the answers received on depression by males and females. Females suffered with depression most.

Analysing media ancillary products (Posters)

In our A2 Media coursework, we are required to make a trailer along with two ancillary products; a poster and a magazine cover. However to make a poster we need to be aware of different codes and conventions of of different posters and what elements in it the defines the genre and a movie itself.

Pathologist

By looking at this poster, we can denote that it is a slasher movie. As the whole poster is shaded in dark blue with the title appearing in red font, we can tell that it can be either a horror or a slasher movie. Elements that show that it is a slasher movie are:

• A person lying on the wall with a surgeon's overall. he seems to look terse and his face shown is half in shadow  
• Next to him lying are surgical tools usually for cutting or piercing skin. All this tools are also focused on the screen. By far we know that is a doctor or a medical student. 
• a sub topic that says everybody has a secret in a discreet way, as if whispering to those who look at this poster. This creates a sense of mystery as we can tel that there maybe some psychological problem with this particular doctor and he might perform surgeries on patient to harm them instead. 
• Too much of shadow on the poster gives it a mysterious look as if this person likes to stay in dark or as if some things are hidden from the viewer. 
• The title is shown in red color. Pathology means studying disease or diagnosing it however here pathology is representing to be more cynical.

On this movie poster other details include the name of the main character, and the details of the arrival of the movie in the same font and red color.

Casino jack

This poster shows that the genre of this movie will be comedy and to some extent crime. We can tell the genre and the main story of the movie by:

• Looking at the graphically designed the dome of the white house, some playing cards, legs of a woman showing as if she has tumbled headfirst in the white house., golf cart, airplanes and some American dollar bills. This graphical display is comical yet shows that this is about a scheming person who is directly involved with the president house. the golf cart, money and the woman is a stereotypical representation of riches and spending e
• The costume of the main character is in suit and tie and is wearing glasses and such formal attire is usually worn by people working in a white house. His posture however appear slightly smirking and shows that he is up to no good.
• The involvement in the politics is further emphasized with the president house stamp in the background. The background is shown as a spotlight directed on the main character which tells us that this whole movie is based on scams run by this single character.
• The title font is ordinary and plain however the topic defines the whole poster. Another subtopic that says that 'meet jack Abramoff-America's greatest lobbyist' Stereotypically lobbyists are known to accept bribes and are involved in corruption and this move exactly follows the stereotype. Another subtopic saying 'come see where your democracy went' shows that money laundering or gambling is taking place. 

The main character is mentioned in that subtopic in a quite interesting way and other information i.e the previous hit film made by the same filmmaker and also the release date.

Pineapple express

 This movie clearly shows that it a comedy movie with some element of crime in it. we can tell the genre of this movie is comedy because:

• Half profile of two main characters shown appear woozy, ecstatic and hyper which can be guess as an effect of smoking a joint or taking any drug. The expressions made by them are also comical. However we can tell the contrast between them by their appearance; The man on the right is all suited up and can be assumed as being the sensible one out of both of them while the man on the right appears visibly blazed and his appearance is also more casual.
• The background shown is of smoke rising which shows that this movie is about drugs. This movie breaks the convention of many movies based on drugs as they are all related to crime and are usually more serious and action packed. Here we can tell that on taking drugs, these people act moronic and stupid.
• The title 'pineapple express' is written in a plain font but the colour is red, which is standing out on the poster

Fish tank

 

Fish tank, we can tell is a drama movie as many drama movies follow a convention of showing more realistic versions of their main character in their habitat. The genre can be made obvious because:

The background of a city and the main character standing ahead can be assumed that the main character is heading out somewhere in broad daylight.

The expression on the main character is also of a rebel and her costume along with with the hood that she has worn are how stereotypically teenage rebel's dress up. 

The font 'Fish Tank' is written in Bold and the font is almost covering half of the poster.

Juno

This poster shows that it is a comedy and a drama movie:

• The background is a stripped orange and white which gives an offbeat look to the poster and we can tell that it is about kids or teenager and it is a comedy movie
• The font of the main title is also unconventional and is going with the background. The title is also green in colour contrasting with the background gives it a more funky look.. two inverted comma's given after a small description of the movie are also in that same font as of the main heading.
• the two characters facing in the opposite direction and standing looking confused and worried further define what this movie will be about. the boy is dressed in track suit and the girl is dressed like all teenagers dress conventionally and appears to be pregnant. Audience here can guess that both are apparently worried and confused about something. 

Easy A 

We can tell this is an another teenage comedy by the whole classroom appearances and the character's forlorn expression. the elements giving an idea of what this movie will be about are:

• The background of a chalkboard with profanities written in different handwritten fonts and the arrow pointed towards the middle where the main character is standing.
• The main character holding a page ripped off from a notebook is dressed like a teenager in school wearing casual clothes and makeup.. Her expression looking confused and pointing a paper towards the audience is similarly like any criminal or an offender who points a board with a serial number written on it, towards the camera for their pictures to be taken.
• Unlike other teenage movie posters, this poster shows more texts and the main story can be easily guessed with the handwriting of the main character on the piece of paper and with all the obscenities pointing at the main character.

Street Dance 3D

The genre of the movie street dance is teenage drama or musical as we can tell by:

• The lights and the background which is more of a platform or is more glamorous. we can also see the crowd in the background which shows that this movie is based on theatre or as the name implies, on hip hop dancing mainly done on streets. from this poster we can tell that a new culture is being bought on the stage. 
• The costumes of the actors and some frozen shots of dancers/actors dancing or somersaulting. 
• The font used here is quite imposing and in a 3D. 

Survey design improvised

1.      What is your age bracket?

         15- 20

·         20-25

·         25-30

Are you :

·         Male

·         Female

Do you watch films?

·         Yes

·         No

How often do you watch films?

·         Never

·         Once a week

·         More than twice a week

·         Several times a week

·         Don’t know

Who do you watch film with?

·         Parents/guardians

·         Friends

·         Siblings

·         Alone

Where do you watch films?

·         Home

·         Cinema

·         Both

·         Don’t know

What kind of movie do you like?

·         Romantic

·         Comedy

·         Action

·         Suspense

·         Slasher/Horror

·         Family

·         Drama

·         Bollywood

·         Fantasy

Why do you watch films?

·         Don’t know

·         To relax

·         To keep up with friends

·         To learn something

·         Other, please explain:

Your all time favorite movie?

Why?

What do you look for in movies/ what makes you choose a film?

·         Famous actors

·         Famous director

·         Songs

·         Award winning

·         Reviews

Do you prefer the main protagonist (One who takes the leading part in a drama) to be

·         Male

·         Female

·         Animal

·         Kid (Boy/Girl)

What would interest you in the following scenario? 

A protagonist:

who is jealous

Rich

Depressed

Poor

Funny

Serious

Having supernatural powers

Other, please suggest:

Audience research (Survey Design)

We are still in a progress of making a storyline. However we thought that maybe we should first research on what exactly will our audience like to watch. Therefore we will first interview a couple of students in our school (teenagers primarily will be our target audience as we are representing teenagers in our movie) and conduct a survey. Below are a couple of question we have devised for the questionnaire that might be sufficient to find out the preference of our target audience

Questions for the survey:

Name: (Anonymous)

Age:

Gender:

Occupation:

Where do you live? (Defense, Clifton etc)
________________________

How often do you watch films? (Rate from 1 to 10)
_______________________



What Kind of movies do you like? 

• Romantic
• Comedy
• Action 
• Suspense
• Slasher
• Family
• Drama

Why Do you watch this film:
__________________________

Your all time favorite movie? Why?
 _______________________

Who would you like to see playing the main role in a movie you like?

• Male
• Female

What occupation should the main protagonist hold?
____________________________

Would you like to watch movies that represents our society or something fictional?
 _______________________

Codes and conventions of a trailer

All trailers first begin with a green public disclaimer about a movie to tell if it is PG rated or universal. followed by the message, the media house or the institution/s logo is shown. the log may be shown after some delay or after few seconds of the trailer. 

All trailers end with a page giving credits to media houses who participated in the production, marketing and distribution of the film.

And soon the Darkness

 The genre of this movie is crime, horror and suspense which is similar to our movie. The first 37 seconds of the video show that there are two girls who have visited a new place and are enjoying themselves in this time duration, camera angles used are quite simple with canted shots, mid shot and reverse shots. Camera movements in some places are quite fast and brisk to show that the girls here are partying and enjoying themselves. The non diegetic sounds here are the party music being played in the background to emphasize the mood being portrayed, and a 'swoosh' like sound bridge after every fade out effect shown or a thud like sound appearing after every text. All these sound effects create enigma and anticipation in the video We hear dialogues and other diegetic sounds as well.

After 37 seconds the music immediately changes to quiet but mysterious beats. the background sound is now slow as now we hear the dialogues of the characters in the trailer. from 0:46-1:16 we see and hear what has actually happened and what the movie is about. After 1:16 everything becomes fast paced as we see series of different clips and the non diegetic background music also catches tempo. We also see more variety of camera angle and movements here. 

The Mise en scene is also more rich and emphasizing here. for example in this particular shot the protagonist is standing in a particular valley and the camera rolls around her to that she is the only person there in the valley. Here two girls visit a rural part of Argentina and the Mise en scene is emphasized with the ratty police station office, homes made with plank and bridges with narrow spaces.

 

Many transition and effects such as fast forward, fade out have been used throughout the movies. small graphically made clips with catchy phrases which gradually turn mysterious and escalate the anticipation of what will happen in this movie.

When a stranger calls

The first 9 seconds of this trailer show a slow pan toward a phone with the non diegetic sound of phone statics and then a person answering a call. We see an insert of a woman screaming and lying on the floor. Now in the first few seconds, audience knows the genre of the movie and that  the whole movie would be based on phone calls.  before 31 seconds we only hear the diegetic sounds of people having conversation, phone ringing and Nightingale. The tension builds up here after 31 seconds when the protagonist gets a mysterious phone call. music starts playing at the background and the volume gradually catches up. on screen we see the protagonist tensed, attending a series of calls form a stranger. 

camera movements used here are quite steady with smooth panning however a fast panning shot that goes inside the house is used just before 01:11 minute. Series of shots of the protagonist trying to lock herself inside the house and calling for help are shown until by 01:11 minutes she receives a call from the police that inform her that the mysterious calls are coming from inside the house. From here the tension escalates and the music changes and catches tempo. Now we see different jerky shots of the protagonist trying to run and save herself from the stranger who has shown himself and is now trying to kill her. Different shots of smaller duration are shown now that increase the anticipation. In the last few minutes just before the title appears, a couple of scenes flicker with the non diegetic sound bridge of phone beeping.

The editing is done here in the two shots at the beginning where the shots have been given a black and white surgical type effect. Words and phrases that appear on the screen vary with the mood created. phrases within the time duration off 00:31-01:11 are just fading on to the screen. Texts after 01:11  are appearing with a swoosh like sound effect and are appearing with a different effect. Fade in transition effect is used throughout the trailer between different shots.

The Roommate

The first 53 seconds show the background of the movie; it shows that there is a girl (Sarah) who for her college has moved into a big city and is bonding with her roommate (Rebbecca). We are shown that her roommate is being exceptionally friendly and generous with her. We see the wide angle shots of the scene's and simple high or canted angle shots of few scenes where Rebbecca and Sarah are enjoying their new college life. How ever the music changes after 53 seconds just after sleeping Rebbecca suddenly opens her eyes as if she was pretending to sleep. The R&b music which was playing in the background abruptly changes into a new track which made the scenes look more intense. After 1:15 we hear a thud like sound effect just before hearing dialogue's which stop at 'medication' and after seeing a look of surprise on the protagonist's face. Till here we know that sarah's roommate Rebbecca is on some kind of a medication and she obviously has not being taking that.

We see close-ups, reverse shots and mid shots of the antagonist (Rebbecca) looking uncomfortable and restrained. After a thud, low rumbling background music is played which make things look edgy. 

In 0:08 and in 1:25 we hear bell chimes of the tower in their college which may also be in some way related with the antagonist as in 1:25 we see her getting affected by the chimes and by 1:38 a scene of violence caused by Rebbecca is shown with diegetic sounds of screaming and dialogues spoken in a menacing tone. These bell chimes are heard more often and the scenes shown are more gripping and violent. Entirely different shots of short duration are shown here and parallel editing is done. Here we find out that Sarah's roommate is obsessed with her and it greatly upsets her when her roommate associates with people she disapproves of. In the end we see a chase in an empty house between Rebbecca and Sarah. The bell chimes are now louder and faster and just before the title of the movie appears, we hear someone screaming 'stop'.

Throughout the whole movie, fade in effect is shown when shots appear or disappear into a blank screen. Animation and transition on the text has been done like in all other trailers. 

List of trailers of similar genres

 Abduction

Defining teaser trailers more

While conducting our research on trailers and how to design them, we came across a website which showed a couple of teaser trailers. Below are the hyperlinks to them

http://teaser-trailer.com/

http://bestforfilm.com/film-blog/top-1-teaser-trailers/

While going through these website and looking at a couple of trailers, we found out that many teaser trailers last for less than a minute and in those teasers we cannot determine the main idea or the story. We find out about the main protagonist of course and what he or she does but the story is left unclear. Such teasers leave an enigma amongst the audience and increase the anticipation of watching that movie. The trailers which generally last for more than 2 minutes are called theatrical trailers and they pretty much tell the audience about the life in general of the main character and what he is going to face in that movie. The endings are usually left unclear.

Difference between theatrical trailers and teaser trailers.

Teaser trailers are released when the movie is coming soon to theaters. Theatrical trailers are released after the movie is released as they are more detailed and audiences generally figure out most of the content of the movie. Also we have noticed that in teaser trailers, minimum shots are used to as compared to theatrical trailers

This is a teaser of an upcoming x men film

This is a trailer of movie transformers 3 which has already been released. Notice the longer time duration and more variety of shots.

Initially we decided to do teaser which are released before the movies comes out on cinema but on our updated specification, we saw that we were to do theatrical trailers that are released after the movie is made. The genre we chose was teen drama/suspense.

We can representative it more deeply because:

1. It is convenient to arrange the cast
2. Our target audience is teenagers around the age group 15-20.
3. With the survey we conducted, people from the targeted age group like the genre we chose.