First attempt at make up ideas for mental patients.

Media Conventions in Media Trailer (Group Work)

Media Conventions in Media Trailer (Group Work)

The conventions in our film will include:

• Blood
• Violence
• Weapons
• Sadistic violence
• The unknown
• Fire
• Darkness
• A forest
• A cornfield
• A mental asylum
• A group of teenagers

The use of these conventions in our film will help to define each character personally, whilst at the same time developing a realistic, conventional trailer. The use of darkness and a village in the middle of nowhere is useful to show the isolation of the characters, as well as using that isolation to play on some of the characters madness- while still being a conventional location. The sadistic violence will be effective, as it will be used to shock the audience and show the extreme nature of the patients and how far they are willing to go with their acts. The use of the forest and cornfield also portrays the idea of isolation, however the location can also be used to build suspense. 

The idea of not knowing whom the killer is will be effective as it keeps the audience guessing. The use of masks has allows been effective in the horror genre  and the idea of people not being who they portray themselves to be. Examples of this are Friday the 13^th and Halloween, which have captivated and scared millions of people through the years, "hide and seek" where emilys dad has mulitple personality disorder, and "identity thief."

However we want our film to portray two different kinds of masks. A physical one, where the patients remove the faces of another and wear them; and lastly a mask over ones own psyche. The idea of having another identity behind the one you already have which you don’t know about will be effective in keeping the audience in suspense. 

MIS EN SCENE.

Another group member has ordered a straight jacket to help create the character of a metal patient.


I have also purchased fake blood and various makeup palettes to ensure that our characters look realistic. We have also contacted the local hospital and enquired about borrowing some blue scrubs to also create our characters. We have collectively decided our prop list including:
glasses
fake blood
blue scrubs
straight jacket
smart/casual clothes for actors.
old boots
a bedroom
small village ( park in the middle.)
cornfield
makeup palettes.
axe
scapel
knife
face mask
injecting equipment. ( syringes/bottles of liquids)
stiches
fake teeth/teeth staining kit
newpaper (we created)

hard candy trailer analysis

•       Hard Candy was released in 2005 at Sundance Film Festival

•       The Film focuses around the idea of dangers facing teenagers on the internet from paedophiles. However the plot turns on traditional connotations as the suspected sexual predator gets tortured by the fourteen year old girl.

•       The film was described as unique and controversial because of its plot

•       Psychological thriller

•       The genre of the film is portrayed through the trailer by the non-diegetic soundtrack, diegetic dialogue/ sounds and the cutting rate.

•       As well as this the trailer creates a sense of tension and feelings of wrongness due to the idea and plot behind the film.

•       The film portrays sadistic violence which is shown briefly in the trailer, helping to portray its genre.

•       By switching the roles between the man and the girl it shows something that is unconventional and for some creates a sense of mystery behind the females character, as the transition from the her first appearance in the trailer as being sweet and innocent to the hard and cold character makes the audience question her motive for targeting this man.

•       The first shot of the trailer portrays the logo of the film company; however the mixture of the non-diegetic soundtrack and the diegetic sound of blinds moving creates a tense atmosphere. This tense atmosphere is also created through the visual effects during this first shot. This also helps to portray the type of genre of the film.

•       It then cuts to a close up of a computer screen with the message “So we should finally hook up, baby?” shortly followed by “NOT a baby, I keep telling you”. This introduces the idea of a flirtatious and sexual relationship which was formed online between a man and a teenage girl; this is made clear through her writing style and user name portrayed “thonggrrrrl14”.

•       It then cuts to a medium close up of a man and alternates from a long angle to a high angle shot through the shot reverse shot. From shots in the trailer, such as this one, the character of the man is shown to represent a seemingly average middle aged male. However as the trailer progresses it portrays him as more of a victim, even though he is the supposed “predator”.

•       The young girl is portrayed as naïve and innocent during the beginning of the trailer, shown through her diegetic dialogue of “I’m reading a ninth grade book”, suggesting that she is trying to impress the man and to seem older than she is. This as well as the dialogue of the man saying to her “you look older than you are and you certainly act older than you are” which in contrast to her reply “really?” makes her seem even more childlike.

•       However similarly to the man, her character becomes more cold and violent, which is mimicked through the non-diegetic soundtrack of the bass gets louder and the cutting rate becomes faster, which seems to mimic her actions.

•       The dialogue of “You thought since we’ve been talking for three weeks you know everything about me” which in the next cut showing a medium shot of her dressed in a grey vest top, makes her appeared hardened, which is also shown through the lighting and her body language.

•       The relationship between the two characters is at first portrayed as happy and slightly sexual, shown through the medium close up of the man touching the girls lips.

•       However in parallel to this, towards the end of the trailer we are shown through a fast paced cut sequence of medium close ups and close ups of her attacking the man. The editing technique used here bridged with the non-diegetic soundtrack portrays the genre and the relationship between the two characters as being violent, as if he was going to kill him.

•       The trailer lasts two minutes and thirty three seconds, which for most movies is the average time given. In that time though we are shown a variety of different shots, which tells us a story without giving away too much information, whilst at the same time promoting the film.

•       The film is an effective form of promotion as the reviews shown in the trailer give positive feedback, such as “will provoke audiences into a debate that will set word-of-mouth on fire.”

•       The poster for the film also portrays the genre of the film, as it shows the small girl dressed in red, similarly to that of red riding hood, with a bear trap around her, symbolising that maybe she is dangerous and is leading someone into the trap.

first drafts of article to be shown in trailer.

At the beginning of our trailer a mental asylum gets burned down, however as a group we do not have the resources or money to replicate the fire. Instead we have chosen a more logical approach and have created a newspaper article which will show what had happened. This not only helps the story to be more realistic but also helps to give a narrative to the trailer so the audience will know what is going on, as this is to represent the story behind the film.

Llanarth court.

Llanarth Court, Llanarth, is a late-18th-century country house with substantial 19th-century alterations in Monmouthshire, Wales. The court was built for the Jones family of Treowen, Monmouthshire and was subsequently the home of Ivor Herbert, 1st Baron Treowen, whose family still owns much of the Llanarth estate, although not the court itself.
 The entrance porch, has been removed. The court was re-built in 1849–50 for the Herbert family by W. G. and E. Habershon, The interior has been modernised and institutionalised and contains "little of either the later eighteenth or the mid-nineteenth centuries". The court is now a private hospital for mental patients. We have decided to film just outside of the court with it in the background, as we discovered a cornfield just infront of it, therefore adding to our mis-en-scene of a phsyciatric hospital setting.

location ideas for our film trailer.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4u1ak1stCaN8mKKE6NI1jqnLTY8ZZ1CtrZ2gHYEM6BAzhMgr7MWR3_H0r1TXdVQz3q8-JSy-jJLyaPU2gHpFwx6-h913BQAKuy8JY939F9BDfWF_d2EKRQrJa6OhyphenhyphenLn9v6IbOysAzYM/s400/DSCF1992.JPG

Group plot.

Lily, along with a few other mental patients are subject to dangerous experiments in an asylum.

They are desperate to stay alive and leads an escape plan which burns down the building in order to fake their own deaths and escape, they then go to the nearest village which is isolated and kill most of the locals. 

They physically replace these victims as a new form of identity and remain there. Meanwhile the victims, now without faces, are placed as scarecrows as a way to scare people away from the village.

One year later, a group of 4 teenagers make their way to the village. Mark, a bit of junkie who has received help in the past for problems, Sarah, best described as a "doll", not the most intelligent, Lewis, a "preppy", well-spoken young man, in a relationship with Sarah, and Charlotte, the journalist, quite intelligent and bossy, almost opposite to Sarah, who was very keen to investigate the Asylum.

They enter the village to stay a couple of nights to explore the ruins of the asylum and decide to stay in a local B&B. Whilst looking around the house, Mark discovers an insane man, later revealed to be his former personality who was an escapee from the asylum, in the basement and warns him that the village is not what it seems and to leave, using riddles to taunt his mind. Mark goes back to retrieve two of his friends and return to the basement, but the local has gone, and the friends doubt him due to his previous hallucination habits.

They leave and go out to find Sarah but can't, and so Lewis returns to the B&B where Sarah is in their room looking out the window, Lewis goes up to hug her and in a strain of suspense, she turns around at the last second with clear fresh scars on her face and a menacing smile and he questions about her scars, meanwhile behind him we see a figure approaching with a scalpel.

Meanwhile, Mark and Charlotte explore the town a bit more and come across a completely empty local newsagent. Whilst Mark dismisses it, Charlotte looks closer at the local paper and notices the date which is the date of when the asylum was burnt down. To discover this, she pulls out the article from another newspaper reporting the event which was published the day after. She tries to think of the connection between the asylum and the village, whilst Mark seems to have flashbacks and falls to his knees. He says that he has forgotten something and can't remember.

Mark and Charlotte go looking for Lewis and Sarah. They find Lewis in a cellar along other bodies with removed faces. Whilst there, Charlotte releases him from the table and explains about the 4 escaped mental asylum patients and the villagers, Mark looks at each of the bodies and suddenly his memories start to come back to him, he then sees the insane man again in the corner of the room and he begins to talk to him. He eventually grabs Mark by the throat and throws him at the wall and is knocked unconscious.

He is awoken by Charlotte and Lewis who appear coy and worried about him. After leaving the basement, Charlotte and the rest of the group go in search for a police officer or local figure. However when they find a police officer, the man kills Lewis. Charlotte and Mark run into a corn field  where Charlotte gets separated from Mark. Unknown to the others is that Mark's old personality has taken over his previous one and is now controlling him. This new personality doesn't know who Charlotte is so instead of trying to find her runs off into a forest. Meanwhile, Charlotte calls out for Mark but is met by silence. She is then attacked from behind and dragged into the corn by an unknown figure.

Mark finds Lewis and plans to kill him as his mental personality has taken over. However Lewis is actually the policeman asylum patient and the two get into a scorpion lock, eventually Mark prevails and slices his throat and afterwards in the mind state of both of his personalities  decides to hunt down Lily.

He finds her on a path in the cornfield. She is now in the form of Charlotte, however the work performed on her face has deteriorated as she could get no assistance as her partners have been killed, explaining her extremely grotesque state. They confront each other about the events a year ago and it is at this point the audience discover Mark is actually the last surviving escapee, along with Lily. 

In a surge for revenge, the good Mark tackles her to the ground, disarms her, and holds his knife to her throat. She taunts him by pretending to be Charlotte, suggesting that he wouldn't hurt his friend that he had feelings for. Mark slowly replies by saying "You're right, I wouldn't.." but eventually continues in his other personality's voice stating "..But I would." and kills her.

The final scene shows the last forgotten escapee, still in the guise of Sarah, finding Mark's car unlocked and begins to hot-wire it. Once the engine starts, the final shot shows her beginning to smile menacingly as she did earlier in the film and then cuts to black.

Hide and seek trailer analysis

http://www.slideshare.net/georgiehamer/hide-and-seek-trailer-analysis-28254435