Our film trailer follows a British Gangster genre, with influence from films such as This Is England (2006) and Reservoir Dogs (1991), Outlaw (2007), Get Carter (1971), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Harry Brown (2009). The main plot is of three teenagers, using patriotism and violence to ironically solve the level of local crime. The film follows Propp’s theory of there being a certain types of characters, however unlike many films where the hero is in the right, here the hero are the three teenagers who are troublesome and creating fear within the public yet right in there own cause.
With my poster, it subtly follows the conventions of a gangster film poster. Though there is no clear image of violence in the photo I have used, e.g. characters holding weapons, they do look a little intimidating and in control. To enforce the use of violence I have added a blood splatter across the title with some spots on the characters. It is made clear by the age certificate box that the film contains strong violence. However though this subtly shows the convention, the film poster for Outlaw is subtle in showing the violent nature, using only a small image of a gun beneath the title and with the sub-title ‘Fighting back 2007’.
I used the film magazine Little White Lies for my choice to create the magazine on. This was because they are a British company and follow different budget films, for example they reviewed This Is England. The style of the magazine is quite unique as they use cartooned versions of actors and characters of the main film they review, often using bright colours depending on the mood of the film. My front cover used the same format, with the three main character’s head positions in the middle in a cartooned appearance. I again went for the subtle approach of violence, creating a small splatters on the middle character, then over top this a blended in bloody Union Jack. This was also to show that the film is British. I have had responses from other people telling me that they thought my magazine cover was an official cover from Little White Lies, showing that I have successfully recreated the style they use.
The trailers style is based upon Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange’s trailer, which was very fast paced and used a more electronically composed version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Put together along with some quick flashes of text and the trailer became very successful, though the intention of it was to shock, nowadays we see it much more comical, due to other films that are more shocking. We began the trailer quite slowly, using scenes that lasted over five seconds, then inserting quicker scenes between to slowly build up the speed and pace. Then towards the middle we used a series of quick scenes that flash and make the trailer a lot faster now. We also decided to insert subliminal messaging based upon the nature of the film. Though they are very quick it and often aren’t notice by some viewers it works well in suggesting that the main protagonists are very controlling and are trying to influence others to their violent and patriotic ways.
The technology we used to complete this was extremely useful with only a few errors, but nothing major. For the magazine and poster Photoshop CS2 was the easiest software to use, as I knew how to use it more than other programs such as Adobe InDesign CS2, which is mainly used for illustrating magazines. To film the scenes for our trailer we used a standard digital camcorder then uploaded the footage to a computer. We hit a slight problem here because the camcorder which was Sony brand, converted the footage to a different file format, which Adobe Premier could read., though this problem was quickly solved back by converting the files to AVI. Using Premier was easy enough to use, as all you needed to know was the basics, then if unsure on how to apply effects, tutorials on the internet would help.
Here is my film poster to our trailer, basing the design, use of colour and the basic format to the 1971 British Gangster film Get Carter.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Harry Brown 2009
Harry Brown is a 2009 British thriller directed by Daniel Barber, produced by Mathew Vaughn and starring Sir Micheal Caine. The film follows a gangster theme as Harry Brown (Caine) goes up against a gang after they murder his best friend. It was distrubuted by Lionsgate and recieved high ratings from GQ Magazine calling it "truely awesome".
Our film is being adapted into a British gangster film, with styles that follow A Clockwork Orange, Reservoir Dogs and Outlaws. This decison came forth as it is easier to produce and create a storyline as well as using strong violence within youths to shock the audience.
The film is now called 'Blighty' and follows three patriotic youths taking the law into their own hands.
It began as a novel in 1962 by Anthony Burgess of the same name, and became a film adaption by Stanely Kubrick 10 years later. It's release shocked audiences nationwide with it's strong scenes of violence and rape consequently led to withdrawl from cinemas, with exclusion of a few in London. One particular scene where Alex and his Drooges break into a home and rape a woman while singing 'Singing in The Rain', was copied by attackers. Subsequently, Warner Brothers withdrew the film from British distrubuters with Kubrick's request.
The film follows Alex, and teenager who believes in 'ultra violence', with he and his three droogs attacking, stealing and raping as he pleases. However after a disagreement with these drooges, he is lured into a house where he accidently kills a woman, and upon fleeing is attacked by the drooges and left for the police. He is later convicted of murder. During his sentence he agrees to take part is an experimental aversion therapy called the 'Ludovico Technique' in which he is given drugs and forced to watch images of violence and hate to Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony'. The outcome makes him feel extremely sick whenever he tries to engage in anything wrong, however it leaves him powerless to defend himself to the hateful outside world of prison, including an old homeless man who he had attacked at the beginning of the film. To his surprise he discovers Dim and Georgie have become policemen, who kidnap Alex and try to drown and beat him in the middle of a wood. He later manages to find a house where he calls for help, later discovering that he had previously attacked and raped the occupants while happily singing 'Singing in the Rain'. Mr. Alexander, the old writer who witnessed this, realises who Alex is after he chants the same song in the bath. He is again drugged and kidnapped and lock in a room, where Mr. Alexander plays the 'Ninth Symphony' aloud, causing Alex to be extremely ill and forces him to jump out of a window. In hospital a series of test suggest his head injurys has affected the experiment. In the last scene it is made clear that his mind is back to the old ways after the 'Ninth Symphony' is played especially for him and he is reminded of images of sexual pleasure, and in a sarcastic tone, he says "I was cured, all right".
The end is a mockery to idea of a 'happy ending' and causing deep reaction to the audience, suggesting that maybe there is no cure to uncontrolable youths. Here is the original trailer to the film, however it is not subtle in the slightest about the violence and rape, with everything flashing brightly to Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony'.
Paranormal Activity is an independant American horror film written and directed by Oren Peli, and follows a homemade video diary of a couple suffering from supernatural events. Though made in 2007 on a very small budget of $15,000 and finally released in public cinemas in 2009, the film has recieved a gross revenue of $141,870,499 and an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 172 reviews.
To promote the film successfully, film taken from an American screening showed the horrified auidience, proving that the film was genuinely scary.
