Where did you get your ideas from?
When I had decided that I would be doing an action movie I started collecting all sorts of props that might be useful when filming including baseball bats, knives, model guns etc. and I started to think of the best way to use them in my school location. After watching a few trailers I started to build up a story and I decided that the best way to use weapons and action in such an large and old fashioned looking building such as my school was by setting the film up with a prison theme.
After I had established that the film would be set inside a prison I had to make up a story line revolving around one of the inmates and by watching various British crime movies like 'Adulthood', 'Dead Man Running' and 'Rise of the Footsoldier', I created an idea of a criminal background story for the character. I wanted my character to be seeking redemption but to make the place he was in to be full of vice and by putting all the criminals in one place such as prison it would be a place of the highest level of corruption and violence.
Did you find originality difficult?
It was quite simple to make an original story line although I had to be careful not to present the film in a similar way to that of 'Shawshank Redemption'. Previous ideas I had involved escape scenes and escape plans which I later scrapped as it defied the whole purpose of the character wanting to serve his time for a better life with his family later on in life and would also draw similarities to 'Shawshank' and 'Prison Break'. I also had to make sure the mise-en-scene of my clips did not look like scenes recreated off these films e.g. certain fight scenes or characteristics of certain prisoners. Once I re-wrote my story originality was not hard to conquer.
Did the use of technology help you in any creative way?
The use of the camera in different angles e.g. low and high angle shots and dissolving images, helped me present certain scenes easier and more effectively as well as create a variety of different shots instead of creating a monotonous range of the same type of shot. Usage of the camera and tripod in different shot angles particularly challenged my creativity and imagination skills to show certain actions in different ways on film.
The Filming Process
Equiptment
Technology:
The technology equipment used for filming consisted of a camera and a tripod. Both were very essential as the camera helped me film while the tripod enabled the camera to be held securely in certain positions. I had decided to make a variety of types of shots exploring angles from a high angle shot to a low angle shot and not just stay with the traditional medium close-ups so by using a tripod I was able to keep the camera still while tilting it downwards and upwards depending on the shot. I also experimented with camera movement while shooting exposing a tilt shot which I may or may not use as a final clip in the trailer.
The camera was very important although I do wish it were a little stronger and could record images clearer in limited light. The tripod too could have been slightly taller but I overcame such problems by balancing it on desks and careful choice of location and setting whilst filming.
Props:
The props in my film were carefully chosen and I feel they were displayed well. The Motorcycle outfit I used for an assassination did well in a shot to show that he is a murderer that remains disguised whilst doing the job. I also used a BB gun which looked very much alike to a real one and a pocket knife as a prison shank. I wanted to give the impression that drugs were a big thing as well as money so I shot a couple of scenes involving a petty drug deal and cocaine being sniffed by a prisoner. Drugs are also relevant to the story as they are a main source along with money that motivates corruption and violence that the main character needs to escape in the prison. I used Sherbert as the cocaine which I thought was effective as it looks similar and was easy to spread around and shape into lines ready for the actor to act as if he were sniffing it.
Locations
In the assassination scene I wanted an area look that looked quite secluded. This would give the scene a normal feeling until it is disturbed by a masked killer with a gun. I made sure it was after dark and filmed in a location with a few trees and under a big street lamp so as to provide the clip with light for visability. The trees would help to give the feeling of a park or forest which are places that are mostly secluded at night.
The rest of the trailer was filmed either in or around my school. I was trying to depict a prison so I needed the outside of my school for the long shot of the building because it is big, old looking and not very pretty. I made sure that the side of the school I shot looked quite rough and industrial. In this shots big bins are visable beside the building with a long chimney. The bin heps to give the palce a less pretty look and the chimney makes the building look more industrial.
My long shot was inspired by shots of Fox River Prison from the TV Show, Prison Break. In this image the prison building is big, plain, ugly and old. It is surrounded by fences and barbed wire to further enlighten us on what time of building it is. Other shots of the prison reveal large chimneys and work factories giving the prison a more industrial look.
Inside my school there are many objects that are similar to that of a prison including a phone booth, food trays and long cafeteria tables, a small boarding bedroom which is shown as a cell and even a gym but this was not added into the trailer. It was essential that I used the school as a prison to show a good mise-en-scene. The school also had tennis courts with cage like fences which could be easily used as a prison fence.
Actors
I had to carefully choose my actors as I needed tough looking people. The easiest people to get as actors were my school mates as they were the people with the most time and some with the best talent. It was difficult to make teenagers look like tough gangsters in their mid-twenties to thirties. I had to choose big looking people who looked intimidating. I got a person with a bit of facial hair that made him look older. I wanted the main character to also look intimidating which is why I got someone with a thuggish haircut but I wanted him to be a little shorter than other main prisoners to show that he is a small fish entering this dirty ocean with big sharks. Obviously I still kept him looking mean to show that he's as bad as the others if he's pushed to the limit.
When picking actors I also had to think about who would act most professional. The deliverance of character is very important but I had to think about who'd be able to act sensibly without playing around infront of camera and wasting time. Many people laugh, smile or figit when they're told to do things in front of camera so I had to make sure I chose the right people who could perform well in front of camera and alsohave the ability to correctly follow instructions from my direction of the scenes.
Storyboard Shooting
In shooting each scene off the story board I encountered a few problems. Sometimes the angle at which I thought of enitially was impossible to do if I wanted to capture everything I wanted in the script e.g. a high angle shot from a particular place may only show the upper half of my body and not the feet. I also frequently had new ideas on how to do certain things while filming and new ideas on how a different type of shot would make a certain scene look better so I often changed minor things in my storyboard and story line. Another problem was changing the location of some scenes because of lack of space in the room I had enitially imagined would be the setting. Sometimes I had to change the location because of the lack of light in that particular area and the scene had to be re-set in a brighter place. I was mostly able to do this without changing the scene too much.
Timing and Scheduling
Timimg and Scheduling is always a main issue and was always very difficult. It was difficult to arrange a time which was comfortable for both me and all the actors to do some filming. We constantly had to work out times between lessons and study times that everyone would be able to act and even then I had a few actors changing plans and coming late. I handled this well however, as I eventually worked out a schedule for actors to keep to but the next problem I encountered was time wastage on set. Sometimes there were problems with communication between me and the actors. There were times that the actors did not understand how they were meant to do a particular action and times when I felt they needed to do something with a bit more emotion or action so a lot of time was spent directing them and because of this each scene was shot at least three times. Other hold-ups included other actors talking on set as the camera was filming a particular person in a scene. I constantly had to keep them quiet and eventually made a rule that they must be a considerable distance away from the set and would come on and act when I called for them.
A lot of hard work was put into making sure everything was done timingly and effectively but eventually we were successful.
Editing
Before editing I had to take my video files off the SD card and arrange them inside the video editing program. This was difficult because my clips were arranged into two different folders on my SD card meaning that each folder had a movie clip with the same name e.g there was a 'MOV01' (clip 1) in the first folder and in the second folder. This would have caused confusion for me when editing editing so although it was tedious I had to rename all the clips in folder 2 as a continuation of folder 1 i.e if folder 1 ends with 'MOV039' then folder 2 will start with 'MOV040'.
To edit my film and put all my clips together I went back to Corel VideoStudio 12 but a major problem I encountered was that I had little knowledge on how to use it. We had done practice exercises on it but I found I could remember little of what I had been introduced to about 4 months ago and even what we had been taught was not enough to make a professional looking trailer. I found that I had to experiment with this program myself and re-teach myself things and find out new things as I did this. After dragging my clips to the timeline bar I started cutting them one by one using my timeline as guidance. I wanted the trailer to start off rather slow and give away a little bit of the narrative before it sped up with quick clips like a normal teaser trailer. This was achieved through cutting the first few clips in a way that they would last on the screen for longer and also extending the time the text was on screen. Then at a point speeding the trailer up by giving the clips less time on screen. In the first half of the trailer the clips are approximately the same length in time on screen as are the captions until the caption 'but jail is no place for redemption' emerges. I purposely made this one longer to add tension to the trailer as it is talking about there being a problem conflicting the main characters plans to redeem himself and save his family. 
A screenshot of my work on Corel Video Studio.
I took great care arranging the clips in the way they are. There is a clip of the antagonist blowing out smoke which I arranged in its place for a reason. The first half of the trailer shows Sam's choice to turn himself n for a better life later on and for the safety of his family. It also tells us that he can't find redemption because in prison you must carry on being a criminal in order to survive. Immediately the high impact caption tells us this, the antagonist clip comes up revealing him as one of the main things stopping Sam from succeeding in his plan and this also exposes him as the main criminal in the prison. The antagonist has a devious face on and him blowing out smoking promotes a bad boy image as well as the image of 'I own this place' because cigerettes are usually a contraband in jail. The non-diegetic becomes faster as this clip is revealed and so does the rest of the trailer. Since the change in speed was started by this clip it shows that the antagonist is creating havoc and action in the film that Sam has to respond to. Like the form of most action trailers I used a non-linear narrative structure which selects the high action and brief clips of the main stars.
When editing I had a major problem with timing the soundtrack to speed up precisely as the antagonist blew the smoke out of his mouth. I had to cut a bit off the beginning of the instrumental and constantly re-add and re-cut pieces so that it sped up at exactly the right time. This took a very long time but was eventually done to my satisfaction. The track used was an instrumental from a Hip Hop song by Professor Green called 'Jungle'. A fraction of my audience will be Hip Hop fans as Hip Hop is a music genre stereotypically closely related to aspects of action, violence and drugs and such fans will be able to recognise the tune and relate it to the fact that a prison is a type of jungle as it can get rowdy and dangerous and holds some of the most animalistic people in the country.
Scene Description
Lizzie's Head teaser trailer
Above is are my movie stills of each scene. The first scene shows Sam being taken away by a police detective and his girlfriend running after him before helplessly retreating into tears. This scene reveals who his girlfriend is and who he is willing to save by giving up his whole freedom. I made sure this was filmed outside a big door with pillars to show that he was a very successful figure in the underworld. Making the character rich is meant to make the audience sympathize with him more when they see all the material things he's giving up to go to jail. This shows the love he has for his girlfriend and the child she's carrying.
The next two scene show his actions before incarceration. The first scene shows Sam disguised by a motorcycle helmet in the act of murder. I used a low angle shot as it gave the masked assassin a sense of superiority over his victim as he pointed the gun. The next scene shows him at home with a bloody baseball bat revealing its connotation as a weapon. I ensured the scene would be shot with the actor topless purposely as the shadows were more visable on his skin. I wanted this to give a sense of his dark and heatrless side before he decided to change his ways. I also made sure he was wearing motorcycle boots as well as having the helmet to one side to show that he was the disguised killer in the shot before.
The next two scenes introduce us to the prison which I dissolved into a shot of Sam with the gun. This dissolve effect was meant to show that that was the prison buildings from the outside and inside the prison buildings Sam is holding a gun and inside the prison buildings is where the rest of the trailer will take place. The look on Sam's face as he takes the gun from a towel where it had been hidden, shows reluctancy to turn to violence but the fact that he still has the gun in hand shows that he might go right back into that life to protect himself from his enemies in prison. In the scene the mirror reflects a shelf of books. I did some research and found that prison cells have improved in luxuries including televisions, books, shelves, sinks instead of it being a plain room with nothing in it but a bed. I made sure that the books were visable to show he has made the effort to keep out of trouble and entertain and perhaps educate himself with books. There is a bag with the letters SEC on it sitting on the top shelf. In my movie the letters are meant to stand for 'security'. The bag has possibly been stolen from the guards to help Sam with a crime. The fact that the bag is on the top shelf shows the ever present bad action being easier and perhaps more dominant than good actions which is represented by the books. The idea came from 'Prison Break' where a prisoner stole a guard's equipment to get into unauthorized areas of the prison.
The next few scenes is where the trailer speeds up. After the antagonist blows out the smoke he is furtherly shown as the antagonist as he is seen physically harming people by grabbing and choking the from behind. The scene where he grabs a person near a sink was a very interesting one when filming. Initially it was meant to show the person being drowned by him, lifted out of the water and immediately thrown into a chokehold but I decided to cut it to just a few moments of the choke because it was looking rather unreal as the actors had to be aware of each others safety with ones head beginning in a basin of water. The first time we filmed this scene it went all wrong with the actors both falling forward into the sink duing the struggle. Both actors were safe during the shooting of this scene although the one of the actors had gone a little red as a result to his head being in water. He assured he was fine and the red face gave a brilliant effect of being choked and robbed off air until your colour starts to change.
Another aspect of this scene was the cutains in the background. At first I wanted to remove the curtains from the sight of the camera but I later decided that this would be set in the cell of the antagonist who was meant to be a mob boss so he'd have certain priviledges such as curtains through dirty money he had paid guards.
The next shot shows the mob boss grabbing Sam whilst he's trying to pray with a Bible which represents Sam being dragged back into the world of violence and corruption. The next scene is a complete contrast in the fact that Sam seems to be yielding to the situation and being corrupt himself by paying off a guard. This small criminal act, however, may be for a greater cause that will ultimately help him out of the bad situation he finds himself in. In this scene Sam and his cell mate are dressed in out door prison fleeces. I took care, as I have previously explained, to let the logo show that they are prisoners who are owned by the state.
Sam getting slowly going back to his violent ways for the sake of self defence is again seen in the next two scenes where he picks up a knife and slams the mob boss against the wall showing him fighting back. I thought this was important because my initial plans were to show what goes on between the criminals in jail and how Sam was getting attacked but I needed to add Sam's retaliation so that it could make the trailer more exciting and also show Sam is not a push-over.
The next two scenes contrast this idea of Sam going back to his violent ways as he is visited by his girlfriend which re-focuses him on the mission of redemption and he is then seen in the medium close up praying and trying his best to stay sane in this jungle of a prison.
Dealers still deal,
Killers still make death,
Over and under Lizze's head.
This will be the main caption from the film which I am planning to put on my poster. By using a variety of different shots, editing them so that they run quickly and presenting the protagonist and antagonist seperately and showing their conflict through out the scenes I have used and developed the conventions of a real media product. I have also brought up the tension through the captions and slow pace at the beginning and brought in excitement through the fast paced music change and scene change in the second half of the trailer which is also typical of some action trailers. I ended the trailer through the term 'Coming Soon' which is a convention of most teaser trailers and then I followed it up by the term 'Not Yet Rated' instead of putting an actual rating as most films at teaser trailer stage are not complete and trailer advertising campaigns conventionally may not rate it until it is.
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