My film pitch

Olivia Calleja

notes

• Girl- wild- use marshes for shots

• Man- her father/uncle/brother/some man. Raises her. Soft music. Show shots of them running timing each other, hide and seek in the woods. I really like some of the wood shots in this:

• http://vimeo.com/32641284

Ideas:

I want to create a film trailer in the genre of a horror or thriller, this is due to the fact that it doesn’t rely on top expensive equipment. You can get away with shaky handheld shots. I am very interested in adding an action feel to my film but I lack the equipment/ budget to produce special effects, so it might not be very effective.

Location: I could use the wooded areas in my hometown, the underground car parks or abandoned buildings- these would be the typical places to shoot a horror. I could even use a normal building but alter the light intensity.

Stars:

I would use some of my friends to star in my film. I would use the ones that take A level drama, or have previous experience in acting. This is because I want to make it as realistic as possible. I want the female protagonist to be of the age of 12-15. This is because I want her to give the appearance of an innocent, weak girl but actually be very strong.

I want my film to have a female protagonist. This is a key point for me in whatever genre I choose.

Stars- cont.

The reason that I am not using famous actors is because I want them to be unknown to my audience for example if I used Daniel Radcliffe my audience would just see him as Harry Potter not the character that I would have cast him as.

I also do not have the funds to hire out professional actors.

Sound:

I want to create a tense atmosphere. Sort of eery piano, electronic synth sounds- Not going into sci-fi though! I want diegetic sounds of breathing for example if running.

I don’t want any words in it only instrumental as I think if I were to have words, they would have to be meaningful to the story I’m creating and I think that it’s very difficult to find something like that unless you create it yourself.

Director/My inspiration:

• Director: I will take inspiration from directors such as Joe Wright who directed the action thriller ‘HANNA’. I like the shots that he uses especially in the opening sequence and the ‘fairy land bit’.

• I want to use HANNA as my main source of inspiration due to the female protagonist. I think it’s something that the mainstream audience isn’t really used to. This gives an interesting twist to the female role which I’m really interested to work on.

I really like this shot as the camera is on the ground with the character, this really puts the audience in the shot with her, adding to the tension in the scene. I also like the lighting in this shot, the darkness in the top right corner coming down shadowing on her face really adds to the mystery and just this shot alone tells the story of what’s happening in the scene, you can tell that she’s hiding from something. You can tell this by her eye-line and also the low angle close up shot adds to the image of her hiding.

This shot is from the opening sequence where she shoots the animal. I really like the depth of field in this image, the way she’s completely in focus but her surroundings are blurred really gives the feel that she’s completely in control. Her physicality with the strong stance with her arms fully extended outwards with the gun with no emotion in her facial expressions really shows to me as an audience that she is in control and isn’t the typical female figure. This is something I would really like to touch on with my film possible by using a shot like this.

Target audience:

• As I would like my film to focus on the female role and different ways it can be interpreted I would aim my film at the female gender.

• Using teenage actors my film will relate to the teenage age group/ young adult: 15-25.

• I would say that it will be mainly aimed at the females this would be the preferred audience but I think that males would be interested in watching as it’s an action/ thriller /horror. Which is stereotypically aimed at the `male gender and it will star some attractive females. Men would be the oppositional audience.

Poster examples:

HANNA poster:

What I like about this poster is the simple lettering it’s bold and plain white yet still give a very strong effect by the shape of the letters, it looks like very long strong strokes of a pen/whatever to create it giving a feel of strength.

I like the tag line ‘ADAPT OR DIE’. This really gives a feel for the film and sets the audience up for what they’re about to watch.

SALT poster:I think that this poster really does portray the mystery element of the film as it has the black back ground in which you see nothing, all that this image is, is Angelina Jolie. This is something that obviously immensely helped to promote the film. I unfortunately will not have the luxury of having a well known actor, so I think that I would still have my protagonist as the main image taking up the foreground but I would probably have a few props or location hints in there to give some more story to my poster than just ‘hey look at my actor’.

I really like the way that ‘SALT’ has been written twice, once in bold white but pretty standard lettering but also, it has been layered on at a low opacity a lot larger this I think looks really effective as a film poster and it also gets the title through to the audience twice in one image so will possibly stick in their minds more.

White Out poster:

I like the ice like colouration of this poster. It gives a cold fearless image. The ice colour also gives the audience an indication to the location of this film-Antarctica.

This poster has a scratched effect over-layed onto it.

I really like the fact the image fades down into plain white and the writing is on top of that instead of covering up the image, I think that this makes it a lot easier to read and so the readers will focus on it more.

THE THING poster:

I think that it lacks a lot of the detail that the others I like it because it doesn’t name the actors or the director, which makes it seem more real and almost mysterious.

This film poster is very simplistic. It lacks in text and detail yet still gets an eerie, mysterious and quite scary feel across.

I think that mystery is a big thing for this poster as it only show one single image which is almost distorted in the title. Although my film isn’t necessarily going to be a mystery I think it’s very important that you don’t give too much away in the poster, trailer or magazine, so this is something I will have to look at in a lot greater detail.

What I’ve taken from these posters.

• I think that I will stick with the mysterious element by having either shadowed pictures or low intensity lighting or even just a plain black background.

• One thing all of the poster have in common is the capital lettered title, this to me really makes me take notice as something important and is something that I definitely would use.

• These posters all have a tag line that increases the interest in the film for me personally, I will think of one for mine once I have my final film idea down.

MAGAZINE

My magazine will be of the film genre type. It will be specifically aimed at new upcoming films, new film festivals/ film festival awards that recognise new directors etc. The edition of the magazine that I will create will specify in Thrillers for example Looper, Taken 2 and Argo. the cover will feature my star. It will include a section on me as a director also as indicated by one of the cover lines.

The Magazine cover

EMPIRE

I found it very hard to find many images of a woman on the cover of the film magazine ‘EMPIRE’. This might be because the magazine is mainly aimed at males, and the masculinity of men. Which is highlighted by the colour scheme throughout the magazine- very dark. There is no fashion things on the women, no gossip, as it’s a film magazine so maybe they feel like they don’t need to include women as much? Or that men are generally the main characters therefore the centre of attention hence a lot more male cover photos than there is of women.

MAGAZINE COVERS

Vanity Fair

What I don’t like about this image is the fact she is so sexualised. Her breasts are the focus of the image. I do not want my magazine cover to be sexualised in any way, this is because I want to show the strength of my character and I also want her to be young around 12-15 years of age so sexualisation is out of the question.

Interview

What I really like about this image is the tones in the photo, it feels a lot more natural than all the clearly studio airbrushed shots.I like the way the mast head is very large and almost takes up a third of the entire cover. I also like the font chosen I think it really complements the feminine side as it looks like it’s been written in lipstick. I like the fact her make-up is done in a very natural way. She is wearing stylish clothing but not sexual this gives her a strong but still feminine feel which is something I will look to replicate for my magazine cover. I think that I will use the colours of this magazine, the simple white writing with the natural light in the photo.

Name for my magazine

Bellatrix- female warrior

Virtue- something good within

Neoteric- new, modern