Our Moodboard

This is our moodboard that we used in our pitch to portray our ideas about the styles, inspiration, conventions and themes of our trailer.
In case you can't read what it says I will type it here...

Styles: Colour, spotlights, canted angles, film noir, low-key lighting, B&W, high and low angles, diegetic sound, shadows.

Inspiration: The machinist (because it's a horror), Memento (because of the narrative- starts at the end), Animal (because of the storyline- the main character does things in his sleep without realising).

Themes: Murder, pshycological, crime, good vs. evil, horror.

Conventions:
Cohere: sound, camera angles, lighting, editing, themes.
Rejects: Plot/Storyline, no real ending, heroes lose, characters.

Our Slideshow

Below is a copy of our slideshow that we showed during our pitch. It shows all our initial ideas for the characters and storyline of the film.

Narrative

Structure

Most film structures support Todorov's theory which says that all film narratives follow a three part structure:
Equilibrium- everything is normal and balanced.
Disequilibrium- There is a disruption.
and then back to equilibrium when everything is all fine and happy again.

Let me give you an example of this using the film, Pirates of the Caribbean. It starts off like any other Todorov theory following film with everybody happy and everything fine.
Then there is a disruption in the perfectly happy world when the pirates come and kidnap Kiera Knightly.
Finally at the end all is well again when kiera knightly and orlando bloom fall in love.
And there you have it. A perfect example of Todorov's theory.

Characters

The theorist, Vladmir Propp, came up with the theory that all films only have a certain number of characters. For example the Hero, Villain, heroine, father, and the donor. They also have certain characteristics to identify these characters.
The Hero often leads the narrative, he does not neccessarily have to be male or have super powers.
The Villain usually conflicts with the hero and looks wierd or different.
The heroine is usually female (but can be male if the hero is female) and is usually pretty and is some sort of prize for the hero.
The father character is the authoritive figure in the film.
The helper is the wingman of the hero, for example Robin is Batmans helper.
The Donor helps the hero in some way an example of a donor is the butler in the film 'The Dark Knight'.

Our Media Pitch

Here is a video of our presentation that we did on our media trailer. We talk about the themes, inspiration, styles, conventions, characters, the plot and the storyboard ideas for our horror trailer, (if you can hear what we are saying...).

Overall, I think our pitch went quite well. It was quite long and complicated, so maybe it could have been improved if we simplified our brief a bit.

Filming Practice

Here is some footage of me and my friends trying out some filming techniques that could be useful for our horror trailer, like shot-reverse-shot, someone being dragged away, passing through a door, subjective view point, chase scenes, and scenes from different perspectives.

We edited the video footage on Windows Movie Maker to try out different effects like B&W, fading to black, and changing the speed. I think the fading to black is an effective transition, especially for the horror genre.