A critical analysis of the animatic process of the groups film trailer

1. An animatic is a series of still images edited together and displayed in the order that it is planned to turn out in the final product.
The function of the animatic is to see if that product will look how you initially intended it too.

2. Animatic process -
- Story board
- shot schedules
- Props, costume & actors
- Limitations
- Taking of the shots
- Editing the shots together
- Addition of sound
- familiarises ourselves with effects and transitions
- completion of animatic

3. To develop the narrative in the animatic from the original story board we learnt that some initial shots and order of shots did not work well together, it's because of this that we switched some shots around when putting together the animatic.
The animatic was very beneficial in this sense, as if we made the trailer straight off the story board we would of made mistakes.

4. From our experience of creating the animatic we leant that the story board was very useful, giving us the rough idea of what order and what structure to piece the shots together in.
Between us we went out on six separate shoots, some in the same places and some places we only went once, but some of us attended some shoots and some of us attended others, based on practicality.
We chose our actors by focusing on the characteristics of the members of the group, in the plot.
In a few of our shoots we revised the idea of taking panning shots by capturing 3-4 photos of a similar shot, but from different angles, so when put on order the shot appears to be panning, and this proved as a successful technique.
In a few of the end shots for the animatic we did not have the number of people we needed to be zombies, so many shots do not look as pleasing as they should. But we still proceeded to shoot in the same angle and location as we planned just to give is the idea that this is where they would be.

5. During the editorial stage of our animatic, we used a software which allowed us to create our product. Through this software we were able to add sound, shorten and lengthen shots, add titles and intertitles, basically everything that we needed.

6. We decided on the length of each shot and transition by thinking of how long that actuall shot should be shown if it was film, rather than just a still image. An example of this is the still shots of the chase scenes, not so action packed when still but we tried to give them the screen time they would need in the finished trailer.

7. Our choice in the inter-titles was to reflect the plots narrative and the genre of the plot. We did this by revealing the simple facts about the plot but not giving away anything spoiler worthy. The font and effect we decided on was to give the inter-titles a type writer feel.

8. The choice of soundtrack was a song by You me at six, a band. The song was called The Swarm, and the chorus lyrics were 'is this the end of the world?', which we deemed relatable to our trailer. However we are aware this song cannot be used in our trailer due to copyright, so we plan on getting somebody to compose a cover o the song that we can use.
The up beat rock vibe this song gives off also represents the action in the particular part of the animatic.

9. I believe our completed animatic appeals to our target audience through the soundtrack, the age of the characters and also the genre it's self, as zombie, survival horrors are very popular with in the generation we aimed our trailer towards.

10. Regarding any changes to the we would make, before we make a start on the trailer-
- include the trailer title. 'The risen'
- shorten the radio transmission dialogue by cutting up the sound and including only important dialogue. We can the edit this together with the sound of the radio tuning, making the static sound.
- get a male to voice the radio broadcast
- include screams of zombie during zombie change scene.
- use tripod more often, especially during night time shots to avoid camera blur.
- Zombie jump scare at the end
- re arrange the order the abandoned house shot appears
- addition to trailer ending
- finds tunnel door
- wipes door over, discovers 'T13' written on the door.
- film date then appears
- sounds of lights flickering, fades into a low angle shot of
group walking into abandoned lab with lights flickering
- jump cut to zombie jump scare
- billing block.

11. 5 key images that i believe to be important are these -

• Close up of zombie as he changes from human to zombie, setting the sense of fear. 
• The establishing shot of the town when its dark with the helicopters flying over and the explosions in the back ground, this disturbs the equilibrium. 
• The close up of the radio with the radio transmission playing as diegetic sound. 
• Long shot of the isolated town streets, as the music kicks in. (Where the zombies where meant to be in shot)
• Over the shoulder shot of the character finding the broken door, this is an important part of the narrative.
  

12. During the construction of the animatic, my role was not just one but many, as I contributed in each area.
I took many of the photos used on my camera, I found the temporary soundtrack and edited it into the animatic, I helped edit much of the piece together, wrote the plot for our trailer that we all agreed on and also a back story to that plot which included a map of the area mentioned in the back story. I also edited the establishing shot of the dark town with the explosions and helicopters included into it.

Animatic trailer improvment notes

• Needs more jump scares
• Include the film title at the end of the trailer
• Scenes without sounds need to be filled in
• Cut up the radio transmition with the radio tuning sounds, only including the audio which stands out the most in the extract.
• Get a male to voice the radio
• Include zombie scream in the zombie transformation clip
• Add footsteps and out of breath sounds to the running scenes
• Use a tripod for the nighttime shots to avoid camera blur
• Extend some intertitles
• Rearange the order of some shots
• Extention of the ending -
   Finds tunnel door
   Wipes dust off door and discovers 'T13'
   Film date appears
   Sounds of lights flickering, fades into low andgle shot of group walking into abandoned lab with lights still flickering.
  Jumpcut to zombie screaming, with a fast fade of white which will fade into the flickering lights.
  Billing block

Final shots for animatic.

Radio broadcast script

*tuning sounds*
This is an emergency broadcast, airing over all major radio frequencies. Speaking out to all survivors.
We are warning you not to make any attempt to leave your home, find food and supplies if possible, but prioritise baracading all entry points to where ever your holding up.
Stay safe, the risen will never stop. They feel nothing, no pain and no remorse. They will kill you.
This message repeats.
*tuning sounds*

28 weeks later Movie poster analysis

Progress on the animatic editing.

World War Z trailer

This trailer for the movie World War Z has been released quite recently, and its a movie i am very excited too see how it turns out just from watching the trailer. 
I've chosen to put this trailer on my blog as i really like how unique the zombies are in this trailer as they can be seen to be more intelligent than in most movies, for example creating towards the end where they pile up on top of each other to reach the top of what appears to be a dam.

It's clear that the unique selling point of this movie is obviously the star Brad Pitt, but take him away and i believe that there left with what i see as being the key usp for this movie, and that's the visual effects and the behavior of these zombies.
I have seen fast zombies before, but never quite this fast, and i after watching this i hope to implement some of the zombie choreography into the trailer. Maybe some zombies can be really fast and some walking at a slow pace.  

Possible location too shoot lab scenes

Final shots in the woods

The emergency broadcast 

 ( This shot will be taken later in the evening )
The zombies find the camp

 First sign of the zombies running through the woods

Some of the shots which are going into the animatic trailer

The camp

Leaving the town, entering the woods

On the way into town

Chase scenes (these will be shot at dusk during trailer)

The risen movie plot

Movie plot (The risen)

After an unknown plague hits a small market town in the south of Wales, five friends, all in the same year group ages 17 to 18 named Emile, Carter, John, Cat and Linda must all discover the cause of the infection as they appear to be immune to its deadly effects. As the group quickly find out, the plague is not the least of their problems as those killed by the deadly infection are seen to rise again, deformed and vicious with a hunger for the flesh of humans who are not infected. 
Some members who live in town, such as John, Carter, Linda and two others, picked up on their travel, Natalie and Marcus ascend from their houses to meet up with Emile and Cat  who come further out of town, in the country side. They meet up at an area in the woods that they used to use as a den back when they where children. They set up their camp here for a short period of time, in order to avoid town as that seems to be where to majority of zombies are based, and also to come to some agreement on a plan for survival.  Fortunately the members of the group living in the country both live on farms and possess weapons such as rifles and shotguns, and even a bow with a set of arrows, with enough ammo to get them into the town.
The members meeting up from the town have to use their instincts, creating weapons from household appliances such as kitchen knives, sports equipment and gardening tools like shovels. 
On the way to the woods, the group moving from the town stealth fully raid people’s deserted  homes for extra food and water, not knowing how long they would go without both, given the circumstances.  However, they lose Natalie and Marcus to a passing horde of infected on the main road leaving town. Narrowly escaping, the remaining three, John, Carter and Linda are forced to take a more unorthodox path out of town, using the sewers which fortunately for the trio have an exit in the woods that they plan to meet up at, the exit pipe flows into the stream which runs through the woods. It’s not till after the deaths of Natalie and Marcus that the group realise just how real this situation is, and how serious they have to take it now.
The group of friends then reunite at the woods very early in the morning before the sun had fully risen, exactly in the place where they planned, and just as they expected they had not ran into any danger in the woods since they get there. They then decide that it’s best to not stay long, a night at the most as they weren’t really too far out of town and couldn’t not attract too much attention to themselves. 
Arriving early in the woods meant that they had a chance to set up camp and a secure perimeter ready for the night. Emile and Cat spare what weapons and ammo they can to the other three. John, Carter and Linda then share their excess food and water with Emile and Cat. 
They stay for the one night at the camp, planning to make a move in the early hours of the morning to make a run through the town and look for survivors. The group take turns to keep watch for infected and the night passes by pretty smoothly. When it’s Emile’s turn to keep watch, everyone else is away in their tents and he hears a rattling sound coming from the sewage pipe, he wakes Carter, questioning him to whether or not he closed the pipes grid or not, but before Carter has a chance to answer, a zombie comes behind Emile and grabs hold of him, Emile being the bigger member of the group flips the zombie over his shoulder and shoots him with his rifle. The other members of the group are awoken by the gun shot and know exactly what needs to be done; they pack their things as quick as possible and device a quick plan. Rather than waiting till the morning the group needed to move into town now, before they attracted any more attention, despite the time being so late at night.  
They flee though the woods and take every back alley and shortcut they can think of to get into town, which results in a fortunate journey with minimal contact with the infected.
To increase their chances of survival for the rest of that night, the group makes haste towards the hold the old castle, with plans locking the gate and fortifying all entrances, but they soon discover that between them and the castle is a horde of infected that where passing through the main street in the town, which they believed to be their only passage to the castle. The horde are alerted by their presence as the group come out of an opening and are faced with their mass of numbers, the infected chase them back through the opening into the street and through the town. In attempt to lose the horde off the tails of the group Carter stays back and as a last stand to fights his way through the infected, blaming his self for bringing the infected to the woods after not locking the sewage grate.
Still traumatised by the loss of their group member, Emile, Cat, John and Linda make their way to the castle on there now clear path though the town, because of Carters sacrifice.
However, once at the castle they discover that there is a strange number of black vans parked at the entrance, destroyed and covered in bullet holes and stained with blood, curious of whats going on, Cat takes a look inside one of the vans and she is attacked by a zombie wearing a uniform bearing a strange logo on its chest. Cat is bitten on the neck, but before the zombie could take another bite John puts an arrow through the zombies eye and kills it. With a recent death mealy hours ago, the group where not keen on loosing another member so they take Cat into the castle, Emile carries her and John and Linda fortify the gates. 
They search the castle grounds in search for a safe area to set up camp and attempt to heal Cat when to their luck, Linda finds that dungeon that was fenced off from the public before the plague hit, was now made accessible and the gate had been open. Taking this opportunity, the group move into the dungeon in search for some sort of reason for the gate being open and maybe finding a clue to the vans parked outside. Before they ventured too far, Linda who studied first aid at her college  before the infection hit, used some of her medical supplies that shit brought with her from home, and bandaged up Cats wound in an attempt to control the bleeding. Cat with her high spirits, eager still to find out what the vans outside where for, pushes the group to move on through the dungeons.
 As they wander through the ancient caverns they soon discover that the dungeon had wires bolted to the walls, thick wires which looked like they could power a whole building. Deeper into the dungeon they go until their tracks are stopped by a large door, ajar with blood all over it. Through the door they find what appears to be a laboratory, abandoned at haste, judging by the coffee cups and papers lying around the place.
In the dim lit room, John finds a button on one of the control panels and out of curiosity decides to push it in a hope that something would happen. Without a second to spare the door they came through had locked behind them and alarms where sounding, the dim lit room was suddenly bursting with flashing red lights.
After being in that room for what seemed like hours, looking for a way out, considering there imminent death, everything shutdown. The lights went out, even the dim lights which had previously lit the room, the door also unlocked which they came through, but so did another door on the far side of the room. It appeared that the laboratory had lost all power, and the doors which locked them in where powered by the electronics in that building, meaning that now all the doors where unlocked. But the group really couldn’t decide whether this was a good thing.
Delving deeper into the now pitch black hallways of the laboratory, the group find a room which seems to be full of giant test tubes. Emile uses his flash light which was almost out of battery, to briefly see their surroundings. As the light scanned the room, Emile and the rest of the group caught a glimpse of what looked like a person, in one of the only unbroken test tubes, mutilated and quite possibly dead, it soon came to their attention that whoever ran this laboratory had been testing on humans, and had certainly been there a long time doing it. 
In haste, the group flee from the lab, picking up medical equipment and other helpful items on their way out. As they reach the entrance room that they came into first, they stopped and devised a plan. Reload all weapons, make every shot count, the plan is to get out of this dungeon, hope that the zombies haven’t got through the castle gate yet, then when everything was packed up, plough straight through the hordes of zombies surrounding the gates and make a run for the river just south of the castle, and follow the river to the next town, to see if the plague hit there too. 

Target audience- 15-25, both male and female
Genre- horror/zombie/survival 

Movie plot back story

The risen 

(Back story)

Five years before the events of the risen (2014), during the early stages of the war between Afghanistan and the united kingdom a company known as the Icarus Corporation created test facility in the south of Wales, in the woods a few miles away from a small market town. Icarus Corporation was a secret organisation that experimented with state of the art technology to create weaponry and defenses for the British army in order to give them the upper hand. However, the corporation worked in secret, meaning that they could not be questioned by the government or anybody else for their unorthodox methods. They where literally invisible, not even existing on the map due to a cloaking device the corporation used to hide their facility from anybody passing by, the area was known to the public as being an old mine field and it was never confirmed that every mine was deactivated. This served as the perfect plot to lure anyone away from the invisible facility.
Due to working in such secrecy the army force that they supplied their goods too where never permitted to set foot in the grounds in case of anyone seeing them enter, instead Icarus where smart about how they carried out their transactions with the army. 
When constructing the underground parts of the facility (where most of the actual structure was, rather than risking exposure on the surface during construction) the builders were told to dig underground tunnels connecting the facility with nearby towns without anybody knowing. 
These tunnels where at least two miles beneath the ground to ensure that nobody could hear the sound of the drills digging through the underground as they constructed the tunnels. Whenever the corporation needed to exchange their goods for funds with the army they would use one of these tunnels, where there would be a task force of Icarus guards waiting at the other end, these guards would then escort the goods to the rendezvous set by the army. The army would get their goods, win another battle, and the Icarus Corporation would receive their funds, and get one step closer to their real goal. The goal of which they kept secret from the army, domination. 
Within the facility, Icarus Corp’ had bigger plans for their research. They believed themselves to be more important than the forces they supplied and even more powerful, so they took matters into their own hands without consulting the army. 
They plotted to create their own force, more powerful than any army that has fought on the earth since the beginning of time. But to do this they need people, test subjects, hundreds of them. 
In 2017 Icarus corporation launched a project in which they would send out groups of specially trained solders into the night and abduct people of all ages and genders from the nearby towns that connected by the tunnels. The plan worked perfectly, with each group using the same technology used on the facility to cloak them as they moved swiftly through the night, abducting people from every corner of the town, but being careful not alert to much attention to themselves. 
The corporation knew of course that it would not be before long until the police got involved and effected their plan, but before the police could even send out search parties, the solders where ordered to stop the abductions as Icarus had all they needed.
Three days of raiding the towns for test subjects went by and Icarus already had hundreds of people abducted and locked away in holding cells, on the lowest level of the facility.
It was clear that the police where on red alert in search for all the missing people from the area but there was absolutely no clue left behind by the icarus solders to where they were taken, as each group of soldiers would insert sleeping gas through the vents in the homes while cloaked, then use devices known as skeleton keys, provided through Icarus research, to open the door as if opening it with a normal house key. They could then slip into the home undetected to snatch their chosen test subject. All gas canisters where then carefully disposed of and they would leave the home in the exact way it was before, leaving no trace of anyone even being there.  
With the Icarus corporation in possession of over a hundred people to test on, there real plan could now finally unfold. The chair man of Icarus Corporation, ordered the workers of the facility to expose each test subject to what the corporation called the husk virus. The researchers at the facility worked on this virus for the army as a chemical weapon which they specified to wipe the memory of anyone it was exposed to. 
The British army planned to use this chemical weapon on Afghanistan, to end all conflict, but in a way that did not murder innocent civilians. They then planned to move task forces into Afghan towns and teach all those affected by the weapon how to do everything again. 
However before the chemical could even be finished Afghanistan declared a peace treaty with the British forces in 2016, making the research useless to the army, but not useless for Icarus.
The corporation tampered with the husk virus so that not only would it wipe the memory of those it was exposed to but it would also speed up muscle growth, make them more alert and have much faster reflexes that the average human being. They then planned to teach those infected to be killing machines for Icarus, knowing only to kill. 
Despite the Icarus Corps’ extensive research and planning into their project, every test subject that the exposed to the husk virus soon died alone in their cell before they showed any signs of any symptoms that they had planned. With that plan ruined the chairman of Icarus ordered that all body’s where to be removed from their cells and burnt in the furnace room so that no trace of their deaths could ever be found, backed up by nobody even knowing their location.
So on during the late months of 2018, the workers at the icarus facility carried out their orders and made their way to clear out every cell in the lower levels where the subjects where kept. The dead had been there for a few days before the order was made and they appeared to be very skinny and pale skinned. When the buzzers went off alerting the facility that the cells where open, the workers moved in and started their job, but to their surprise the dead rose. 
In each cell, the test subjects rose from the dead, with gaunt skull like faces and red bloodshot eyes, hungry for flesh. They attacked the workers and tore them limb from limb eating their flesh and moving on to the next group. Not expecting it at all, the workers were not armed and stood no chance against the horde of hundreds of undead. 
In panic, Icarus chairman ordered that the lower levels where to be shut off from the rest of the facility but it wasn't quick enough, the horde moved fast through the levels, even the facility’s guards where overrun by the infected, there was just too many of them to be stopped by the small amount of solders the facility had onsite at that present time. There was no stopping them, and it wasn't long before they were close to the surface and that’s when the chairman had to make the hardest decision of his life, eradication. 
The chairman of Icarus Corporation was based in a tower, sat at the highest part of the facility, (it was that tower which emitted the cloaking field) and in his tower he could control the rest of the facility. 
Sacrificing his own life and all those workers who still ran from the infected inside, he made the decision to self destruct the facility, destroying all the underground and completely leveling the surface. The explosion was a singularity device, created by the Icarus Corp themselves, that would destroy anything in the radius of the device without an explosion unlike any normal bomb, so that in an emergency like this, nobody would know that anything was happening unless they stood directly outside the fenced off area of ‘the mine field’. 
Before the hordes could reach the surface, the chairman detonated the singularity device and the whole facility caved in on its self. The surface levels dropped into the underground, and the lower levels where crushed by anything above, all those inside where either crushed by debris or killed by the infected. 
The cloaking device that hid the facility was still emitting the field as it fell with the rest of the facility, now all that can be seen is a bumpy bit of terrain with in the ‘mine field’. 
It won’t be long until the emitter loses power and flattened facility is revealed to the world, but none of that matters anymore to the Icarus Corporation as they are now cease to exist.  
However, before the whole facility was destroyed and before the chairman even set off the singularity device, some of the infected escaped into the tunnels of which the Corporation used for their transactions with the army, and the majority of them escaped through tunnel 13, the one which lead straight into the old dungeon at Abergavenny castle. 

Zombie transformation.

Practicing zombie make up and also use for animatic 

28 weeks later from PittAR

Group plot descusion.

This is a recording of my group, discussing each other’s plots and giving feedback to each group member. From this session we had not completely finalised our plot, but we gained some ideas from everyone and are currently in the process of finalising it.

looper trailer analysis

Looper trailer analysis

The genre of this movie is an action sci-fi, the first clear indication that this trailer is going to have an action element to it is the fight scene, roughly 30 seconds into the trailer, and this action carries on throughout the trailer in multiple scenes. The first glimpse of the sci-fi element in the trailer is the establishing shot of a city which appears to have much more advanced features compared to a modern day city, also incorporating time travel with the trailer shows that this movie will not just be set in modern day, proving it to be sci-fi as it will also be set in the future.

The trailer targets an audience from ages 15 to possibly 40 and mainly male. It does this firstly by its genre of action sci-fi which is an attractive genre for the majority of males, but it could possibly push the target audience boundary to the ages of 40 because one of the main characters is played by Bruce Willis, and males of that age could then relate to previous movies he has starred in, which is also one of the films unique selling points.
Another unique selling point this movie has is the original idea for the plot. From what is revealed to the audience in the trailer we can see that the movie will be about a time travelling assassin who is given contracts from people in the future, to assassinate targets who have been sent to the present day to be killed by the assassin, who seems to be our main character. However, the plot seems to have a twist as this character is forced to kill his self from the future, and fails to do so, causing him to hunt his self down in the present day before the person who wants him dead finds out.

The film trailer lasts for 2:30, and has a montage of roughly 86 camera shots all edited together, with a consistency to use fast paced transitions of fade to white, then fade to shot. The first example of this is the conversation and fight in the first scene of the trailer, with most transition being backed by a non-diegetic beat, giving the viewers another hint towards its genre of action.
Non-diegetic sound in this trailer is used mainly when transitioning to another scene, but the non-diegetic, electronic music which begins playing towards the end gives the viewers the feel that the movie is going to be truly action packed. The genre of music at the end appears to be dubstep, of which its popularity is continually growing, with it being featured on many recent movie trailers and video game trailers. The main USP with this genre of music is it attracts the younger half of the target audience, boosting their interest in the trailer, and therefore making them more likely to want to go watch it.

The diegetic sounds in this trailer consist of mainly dialogue of both voice over and conversations, both which explain the narrative to the audience. The voice over does this particularly well, by revealing most of the plot in just one line of speech. “In the future time travel is outlawed, used only in secret and by the largest criminal organisations. When they need someone gone, and want to erase any trace of the target ever existing, they use specialised assassins like me, called loopers. The only rules is never let your target escape, even if the target is you”, this line of speech reveals a lot about the plot and tells the audience that the main character the movie will be focusing on will be the assassin, as the voice over is spoken from his point of view.

The way the trailer represents characters is rather unique compared to most modern films as the two main characters it focuses on are the same person from different time periods. There is immediately a sense of a strange bond between the two as the older character knows everything about the younger and more, and the younger knows a lot about the other also, almost as if they were family, farther and son perhaps. Also they are both shown to be on the run from someone, at least for the time being anyway, as the younger character has to avoid his boss until his target is dead, and the older character needs to avoid both the assassin and the assassin’s boss.

The use of titles in the trailer are shown to firstly advertise the film’s production companies, but they are shown roughly a quarter of the way through the trailer, after the fight scene, they are edited into the transition between this scene and the city establishing shot. The production companies names used are tristar, film district and endgame. ‘this fall’ a trailer will often tell the viewers when the movie will be shown unless it’s a teaser trailer. ‘The only thing to fear’ ‘is yourself’, once again this reveals more about the plot to the viewers.

Here are a few codes and conventions and picked up on while watching the trailer, that enforce its genre of action sci- fi:

·         The trailer includes a fight scene

·         Props such as guns are used to emphasis the action

·         Establishing shot of the location (advanced city)

·         The trailer establishes a problem, and the audience is left to wonder whether that problem is sorted out

·         Voice overs are used to explain the narrative

·         Criminal activity is important to the plot, like a lot of action movies

·         The movie appears to have scenes in the future, giving it the ability to be more flexible with the realism

·         Slow motion is used in some scenes, a lot of action movies do this to create a much more tense moment in the movie

The land of the dead

This is an example of a zombie horror movie that i will post an analysis of after this post.

A2 coursework

For my corsework this year in media studies I will be posting various images, text and video on this blog relating to the following task.
The task consists of creating a film trailer between a group of my fellow class mates, based on an agreed movie plot which will be discussed and created between us. As well as this task, on my own i must create a movie poster, relating to the trailer we created and also a film magazine cover featuring an image from the movie.