We Finished Our Filming

The group and I have hopefully finished our filming on Thursday. We met up in Tooting to do our final bits of our teaser trailer. It was extremely cold so we may have rushed it. I think we got some really good shots that day, my favourite shot was a POV/low angle shot from inside the boot with me closing the car boot. We also added some dialogue whilst in Ainsley's car just to show the difference in character; my character was confident and willing to do the robbery whereas Ainsley's character was not feeling upto the it and wanted to back away. We also used props, we had a small BB gun, this would be really relevant later on in the film as that would be the same gun that is pulled and used against my character.

We are sill yet to edit it, and once we have edited it all we can see if there where any scenes we missed and then add them later on but for know, we have finished the majority of our filming. 

Today's Filming

Today, our group filmed in Valley Park. I would say today was very successful as we got a variety of shots today and all were very effective. We filmed a lot of shots with only one character in focus, in one shot it was Ainsley and another shot it was me.

Both our characters did the similar shots but were in opposite directions, for example, if Ainsley was caught walking from left to right down a street in a medium shot, my character was right to left to signify that they are two opposite characters. This also gives a feeling to the audience that they are going to meet up for their final confrontation. The two characters were dressed similarly, Ainsley had a black hoodie on, and I also had  a black hoodie with a black Nike jacket on top.

We did run into a trouble with the police and were questioned why we were filming and did waste a bit of our filming time. I asked if it was okay for Salim (our camera man) to film them while they were talking to us as it would of been very effective in our trailer- as it shows that these two 'friends' have been in trouble by the police before. However, they didn't feel comfortable to be recorded as they wouldn't know where it was going.

To end on a positive note, the group as a whole think today was very productive and can't wait till Wednesday, the day we hopefully finish our majority of our filming. On Wednesday we are looking to shoot where the robbery goes wrong and their fallout.

Our Teaser Trailer in the SuperBowl

One of the biggest sporting events took place on 3rd February, the SuperBowl, this is the final of the American Football league and during the half time, many celebrities come out to sing in front of the huge crowd. This year was the reunion of Destiny Childs, Alicia Keys and many more. During the half time, there are also a few commercials for new upcoming films, most likely big blockbusters. This years blockbusters are all highly anticipated sequels to hugely famous and very successful franchises. This years trailers were Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6 (the trailers are below)

To get a trailer into the halftime of SuperBowl, it is reported to cost $4million for 30 seconds. I thought this would be a really great idea as millions of people watching the half-time events would watch the trailer and get more people interested to watch the film. 

However, it is a big risk as our film is not a big blockbuster, many people would not want to waste their money to go and see our film, but some people still may want to see our film. Most films that have been placed in the halftime have been huge successive films and most are sequels (as is this years). 

There aren't only films, there have also been game trailers for hugely successful game companies, the most obvious one being the Call of Duty series.

I still believe that putting our trailer in the halftime SuperBowl spot would be a great success.

Ideas for the Magazine Cover

Our group decided to make our magazine cover like a split screen showing two sides of our main character Ainsley good and bad side on each side. The group and our teacher think this is a great idea as the film focuses on the choices and consequences of Ainsley. We were thinking of having a dark and light shade on each side of the split screen. On the dark side we would my character in the background emphasising the bad side as my character pulls Ainsley into the gangster and street life which he tries to avoid.and the other side which is the lighter side which would be focusing on the good boy side of him.

I got the split screen idea from the George Clooney and Ryan Gosling film 'The Ides Of March'. The film has a split screen poster. This film or poster has nothing to do with our film but the idea of its poster is very similar to our film poster.

We Started Shooting!

On Thursday 17 January, we started our shooting for our trailer. Since we were going to use a car for our trailer, Ainsley is the only member of our group that drives, he brought his car in and we decided to do some shots from the car as a trolley shot. We have many shots such as the camera being placed on the dashboard, shots from our side view mirror, and pan shots of the car driving past.

 One of the best shots we captured was a pan of the police, we drove past the police with the camera in the side mirror and capture a van and a few officers in uniform. We thought this would be a vital shot for our trailer as it sets the tone that there will be conflict, plus it is a stereotype in urban films for there to be police either in the trailer or in the film.

A few problems we faced was the traffic was quite slow so a lot of our footage did get kinda un-interesting and boring. However, the main problem we faced that day was that during our driving, the road got bumpy with pot holes and speed bumps, so many part of the footage is very shaky and that is something that is frowned upon in the marking criteria. However, the group will try to sort something out, we might have to go out and film again. We were also thinking of filming at night as it will also be more effective as many more teenagers are out in the evening and would be more connecting to our demographic.

Jack Reacher Poster

Jack Reacher is the new Tom Cruise film which came out recently. It is an adaptation of the popular Lee Child novel 'One Shot'. While the film was in production, the original working title was "One Shot", it was directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie. The film entered production in October 2011 and finished January 2012, it was filmed entirely in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The movie has rallied a lot of rumour of Tom Cruise winning his first Oscar. The film was scheduled for release on December 15 but was delayed due to the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. The film was released on December 21st in the USA and December 26th.

The poster has Tom Cruise in the middle of poster with the camera on a low angle showing he is control, he has some scars on his face showing that he just had a fight and because his eyes looking past the camera, this could suggests he is looking at his fallen victim, this is emphasised further with gun in his hand. Also, with the car headlights on behind him, this gives Tom Cruise's character more darker and more mysterious. Everything behind him is blurred out by the shallow depth of field behind him and he is in full focus, this also emphasises the fact that he is main character and the man person in the film.

The poster has really influenced our poster with the main character in action on the poster.This was a really good idea for our poster. We could have our two main character (Shahrukh and Ainsley) in action. we could have a black background just to further emphasise its a very dark rivalry between the two characters.

The idea of the main character being bruised and being the main 'object' in the poster gave us an idea that we could use for both film poster and magazine cover. We could use it for our film poster by having either my character or the character of Ainsley scruffy and really gritty looking in the front of our poster suggesting he is fighting someone or something, maybe the life he is living, maybe he is fighting to change for the good. We could also use it for magazine cover, by using the same idea, this would entice the reader to read into the film and watch the teaser trailers and maybe go watch the film.

Our Ideas

The group has decided to carry on with a revenge urban thriller. We decided to follow in the footsteps of Noel Clarke's KidultHood and AdultHood as a sort of urban action thriller. Our film is set in Brixton, the heart of South London, in a very urban and gang affiliated area. We chose this area because I grew up in Brixton and is famous for its gang activities. As in the film, there is also alot gang activities and fights, it fits well with the scene. Other scenes in the film will be done in college in Tooting Bec, it will our college Ernest Bevin College as the one of the character has to chose between being a gang member or carrying on with education and college.

For the costumes, many characters will be very casual; dark jeans, trainers and black hoodies. This is the very common dress code for youths in today's urban area's. There will also be scenes in a school uniform with the younger brother.