This is a rough paint outline of what one of my main characters would look like:
Explaining the character
The two main antagonists are Tick and Tock (representing the noise of a clock, as the film revolves a lot around time). Tock is the 'sidekick' of the two so to speak, and is often seen as the more jester character. However, he's hasty with his decisions, unlike Tick who will think things through as the 'ring leader'. They are very much a 'Batman and Robin Team'. Both Tick and Tock are wearing suits to make them a bit more intimidating, as you often think of people in suits having more authority, however, Tock only wears a waistcoat and skinny tie as opposed to a full black tie suit. Tock will also be quite a bit shorter than Tick.
The Mask
So far I've only made the mask for the costume of Tock, but I only need a suit to complete the person.
A BASIC Outline of the Film
My film will be not be about aliens and outer space, like a lot of sci-fi films are. My concept will be about there's a few people in Britain who have discovered that at 11:11:11 every day (am time), there's an unusual occurance that happens, which is that the world around them seems to flicker and the people seem to flicker. This is to be later revealed that these people have been trapped in an underground secret lab by two "scientist's" named Tick And Tock (who are the protagonists of the film). And these people have to escape the labs in order to get back to reality. However this will be not until near the end of the film.
As it's still early days, there's still a lot of kinks to smooth out.
The aim of my trailer is to try and make it as minimalistic as possible as often I find that if you only show a few enigma codes and text in a trailer, as apposed to explaining the whole plot with speaking, it leaves me wanting to go see it, just because the film in itself is a mystery. I find that if a lot gets shown in the trailer it also spoils the movie and people wouldn't want to see it already as they would have guessed the plot from the trailer.
As I have mentioned earlier in my blog, I have decided to make a film which is sci-fi/mystery/thriller related. I have hoped that I've represented this fact in my blog, by the picture of the world in the background, as sci-fi is often associated with outer space and also the colours used for the text is green, which is often associated with sci-fi as well. By putting a white background for the text, this means that people can read my blog a lot easier as opposed toit being on a black background (which I had originally planned).
For my media project this year, I have decided to make a teaser trailer which will have a sci-fi/mystery element, I decided to do these genres as they aren't that specific so I can bring in a lot of ideas for my trailer and also those two genres put together is quite uncommon however they can work together quite easily. The audience I will be trying to aim at will be most likely around 12+ years old, as in more recent years, children are exposed to more violence in films of a younger age, therefore 12A will be a suitable rating for the trailer/film. For instance, films like 'Monsters' by Gareth Edwards staring Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able was a 12A, which contained some uses of Horror and violence and could be considered a bit scary for the younger kids. My trailer would be able to be shown in Cinema Previews for both 12A films and 15 films, primarily films that are Sci-Fi and possibly thrillers, for instance films like the recent 'Cowboys and Aliens' by Jon Favreau starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, as both this film and my film trailer are closely related, therefore capturing my target audience.
Donnie Darko is one of the films which most closely relates to the sort of style I am aiming for, for my style of trailer. This is a film all about pyschology mishaps, however also you unravel more and more unanswered questions throughout the film, this results in it also being a mystery. The Official trailer is good to study as well, as although it is still an official trailer, it's quite a lot shorter than average trailers, so it's quite similiar to a teaser trailer. (The Trailer is no more than 1.30 Minutes, whilst more modern official trailers tend to be around 2:30 minutes long.)
Donnie Darko (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is a teenage boy who has to attend meetings with a psychiatrist, this immediately gets the audience asking questions, as to why he has to go see a psychiatrist. You soon find out that Donnie has a friend, of imagination, called Frank, who is a rabbit with unnerving appearances.
When you find out about Frank, you instantly think that Donnie is just crazy, however, in further watching of the film, you start to think that Frank may not be actually be a figment of Donnie's imagination. This is due to the fact that Frank unveils his costume revealing a human, not much older than Darko is, with an eye which has pratically been ripped out. Following this, much to the confusion of the audience, Donnie Darko repeatedly says 'Sorry'.
Throughout the film, Donnie inspects the concept of time-travelling, which most people consider ludicrous, making the audience consider the possibilty again that Donnie really is mental.
Studying the Trailer
Soundtrack/Music: The trailer for 'Donnie Darko', is dialogue which has been taken out primarily out of the film itself. Giving the viewers an insight in both the genre the trailer is representing (Pyschological/Thriller), but also what the film is like itself, and therefore getting to know the characters a bit before you actually go to see the film itself. The trailer starts off with audio which sounds like a reporter of this person's life, which starts as soon as you see anything appear in the trailer. Soon into the trailer, we find out that it is a teacher who is reading an extract from a book in class. Throughout the trailer, a lot of audio clips have been taken out of context of the film and have been shown in a way that it seems like all these people are talking about Donnie.
Footage used: The establishing shot is of the main character Donnie Darko exiting from the back of the bus, whilst the camera is tilted, and spins to return to it's normal format- this is very unusual as an establishing shot as it usually is of a scenic place, eg. a mountain or across a lake, and also often is an extreme long shot/ long shot and shot with a static camera, whilst this was a close-up and the camera was moving. There is very little text in this trailer, until shown at the end, in which it relates to Donnie's last name Darko. Unusually, the text in this trailer is all in a light blue, however, with the font used and the Black background, the contrast still makes the trailer a bit sinister.
This year, for our media project, we have a choice of either making a Teaser trailer (around 30-60 seconds)- Also to include a film poster and a film magazine front cover advertising your film, or A Short film (about 5 minutes long)- This also includes creating a film poster and a film magazine review page.
However, this is all the criteria we have to meet this year, therefore we have complete freedom on which genre we would like to do this year.
Popular genres that have been done as a Short film are;
*Social Realist- which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles. Also, Social realist films tend to be British.
E.G. This Is England- Shane Meadows
Billy Elliot- Stephen Daldry and Lee Hall
*Film Noir- A style or genre of motion picture marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. The term was originally applied to American thriller or detective films made 1944–54.
E.G. The Maltease Falcon
The Third Man
Sunset Boulevard
