Cocaine research

Budget

For our film trailer we have to account for the amount of money we will need to be able to get to locations,  props, costume and any technology we need to assist our filming. This video explains the budget we used and how it was spent.

Call Sheet for secondary filming

Filming Problems

On the night before we were set to film, Sam our male actor pulled out last minute due to being unable to attend filming. With this we then had to find another male actor and quickly. We then emailed everybody we could to try and find someone to fill the space at such late notice. With us emailing over 15 people we received two people who were willing to commit to the role.

Pictures of emails:

This are a few of the people we emailed to find out if they were available to help us film at such late notice for our trailer as our actor had cancelled. 

We managed to get Brandon Wells and Liam Sydall to agree to attend and then after looking at who would be better for the role, good chemistry with the other characters and connivence we chose Liam Sydall as he suited the role a lot better and fit well. 

On the day of filming one of our actors, Jess Henderson lost her purse during filming and as we broke for lunch, Beth and Jess left to have a look for it as we recharged the phones in Starbucks. Unfortunately they were unable to find it and so we had to look around the station to report losing it, check that it wasn't handed in and sort out the ticket situation as she had lose her travel card. This took time out of her day but was a necessary thing to sort it out, this cost us an extra £10.25 and we managed to continue filming and get footage. 

Trailer Target Audience Research

Website Target Audience Research

Poster Target Audience Research

Crime Target Audience Research

Barthes

After our research into narrative theory we found that Barthes theory was the one we felt best fitted to our trailer's narrative, therefore causing us to research further into Barthes work and theory.

Hermeneutic Code: elements of the story are not fully explained, this creates a mystery or enigma, keeping the audience guessing and to encourage them to view the trailer, as they are left with unanswered questions.

Proairetic Code: builds narrative tension, relates to something else that will happen, unknown, audience are kept guessing.

Barthes considers three other codes (semantic, symbolic and cultural), however these are less directly relevant to theory applied to our trailer.

Both of these codes work in relation to each other to develop tension in a narrative. We felt this theory was best to apply to our trailer as, by their nature, trailer's do not tell the audience everything, henceforth leaving mystery and enigma. This is something we can develop within our trailer, incorporating to our advantage as mystery is a key element and convention of the crime genre.

Examples of shots creating an enigma/mystery:

Question screens

Variation of questions makes the audience think, puts them in character's position

Drug use

Who is taking drugs?

Why?

Running shots

Where are they going?

Why are they running?

Who are they running from?

What are they running from?

Are they in trouble?

Why are they in trouble?

Money

Who's money is it?

Why is it on the train?

Will they keep it?

Where is the owner?

Will they report it to the police?

Will they work together?

Health and Safety

For filming we have a few health and safety concerns which we need to ensure are managed in order to film safely.

Lighting: For one scene,  we are to film in a tunnel which has low lighting, we have one light for filming which will be used to make sure that the actor being filmed is viewable on camera, this is also useful as it will help us see in the tunnel. There are many cars driving reasonably fast as it is a main road, and so extra care needs to be taken which will be able to do with the torch.

Props: In one scene we are showing an actor throwing a bottle at a wall, this requires extra precautions such as ensuring he was standing an appropriate distance away from the wall, as only his hand and the bottle are visible in the shot this should be reasonably easy to do. For a different scene a cricket bat needs to be used, we have arranged the camera angle so that the person filming won't be hurt and no contact is made between the bat and an actor.

Drugs: For obvious reasons the drug-like substance which we are to use is intended to appear like the real thing and the actress simulates the actions of taking drugs without actually doing it, as it is illegal.

Talent Sourcing

For our characters we needed one boy within our trailer so we auditioned 3 different actors for the skater boy character. They all auditioned separately as well as in a group with the other girl actresses as that would be who they were acting behind.

For the two protagonist actresses we had a choice of three girls; Charlotte Spicer, Harriett Sydall and Jessica Henderson each one of these girls is a theatre student and all have the ability to perform well under pressure, any character and with anyone. The girls all auditioned for us by performing improvisations together, separately and scripts.



They all were very talented and appropriate for the film trailer, we tried Harriett and Jessica together playing the different contrasting characters and they worked well with each other and made a good contrast.

We then decided that these two girls would work effectively well together as they have worked together before, there both talented actresses and can both convincingly play the two contrasting characters go grange and Girly Girl. 

Equipment

For the majority of our filming we have decided to use the 8MP camera on the Iphone 5

It has full HD capabilities (1080P) and records 30 frames per second.

Below is a comparison between frame rates

Although the Frames per second is not the highest of filming equipment, we decided the other features available only on the Iphone such as touch focus (see below) and its ability top deal with low lighting levels without becoming grainy.

It also has a video stabilization feature which we will use in conjunction with the stabilization feature of IMovie to create the smoothest footage.

It also has touch focus, which allows us to use focus pulls to direct the audience's attention from the foreground to the background and vice versa.

Below is an example of a focus pull. We did not use the tutorial part of the video as the Iphone has the feature built in and is very intuitive.

 

The Iphone 5 has 16gb of space with about 8gb free so that is over 4 hours of HD video

We looked at using the cameras the school provided. They are panasonic ????

However we decided not to use them as from our experience of them last year they do not provide the range of features we are planning to use for some of our shots or cope well with low lighting conditions which will be a key feature of our trailer to create tension and a sombre mood.

Another piece of hardware we are planning to use is the gorrillapod.

This brand of camera tripod has unique bandable legs which means it can be suspended from anywhere and secured anywhere, even with little ground space available.

This will help us to film in the challenging urban environment of London and also to obtain shots and angles which we would not be able to achieve with just a conventional tripod

We are also taking a conventional tripod like the one below to provide a stable surface when we are filming in open areas and also it has a handle which allows us to tilt and pan smoothly, both features which we are using for some of our shots.

However since both of the tripods are designed for conventional SLR's and camcorders, the only connector on them is the screw on the top, so to enable the Iphone to fasten securely, we have sourced an adjustable converter which will hold both types of Iphone's and has a screw hole in the bottom to connect to tripods

 For lighting as well as the fairly bright wash of light provided by the torch of the iphones, we also have a LED ring, which throws light outwards to create a general discreet light, as unlike the iphone it is made of many small LED's so doesn't cast as harsh shadows and it's not as obvious where the source is.

We are also taking a Maglite torch as they have the most powerful beam and best battery life and provide a direct beam which can be used to cast shadows and highlight certain areas of the shots.

We are also taking a Magna lite as it provides a direct beam which we will use to cast shadows and highlight particular areas of the shot

Filming problems

We originally planned to get most of our London filming on Sunday the 5th of January, but unfortunately all trains to London were cancelled due to severe weather conditions and flooding so this prevented us not only being able to travel to London but also we could not get to two of our actors so couldn't film any aspects of our trailer.

 

We have rescheduled our filming day for Sunday the 12th January. In the meantime we are filming all of the shots in the studio at school, which include the club scene and the cocaine scene. 

We are using both media classes and some of the year below to create the impression of the crowd within a club.

Call Sheet (Borough Green)

Call sheet (Tunbridge Wells)

 

 

Storyboard

Shot list

Call Sheet