Age Certificate

Our film has an age certificate of 12A. Our film matches all of the requirements for violence, language and drug use suitable for a 12A.

Violence at 12A:

"At 12A, moderate violence is allowed but it should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if they can be justified by their context (for example brief sight of bloody injury in a medical drama).

Action sequences and weapons may be present at 12 or 12A, and there may be long fight scenes or similar. Weapons which might be easily accessible to 12 year olds should not be glamorised in 12A and 12 works.

Sexual violence, such as scenes of rape or assault, may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated at 12A. Such scenes must also have a strong contextual justification."

In our film there is only one scene containing violence. In this scene Alex is punched by the drug dealer. He then stumbles and falls and hits his head which causes his death. This is very moderate violence and it is barely emphasised if at all. There is only a small amount of blood to show that Alex is in fact dead in the scene and not unconscious.

Drug Use at 12A:

"There may be infrequent sight of drugs misuse in a 12 or a 12A but the portrayal should not be glamorised or provide instructional details."

Again, in our film there is only one shot of Alex consuming the drugs and a scene of him experiencing the effects. Our film doesn't glamourise the use of drugs and doesn't provide instructions on how to use them, so our film again meets the requirements for a 12A film.

Language at 12A:

"The BBFC's Guidelines state that there may be strong language (eg 'f***') at 12 or 12A, but it must be infrequent. The context of the strong language is important. Aggressive uses of strong language may result in a film or DVD being placed at the 15 category. There is some allowance for puns on strong language at this category.

There may be moderate language (eg uses of terms such as ‘bitch’ and ‘twat’ at 12 or 12A).

Any discriminatory language will not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive discriminatory language (for example homophobic or racist terms) is unlikely to be passed at 12 or 12A unless it is clearly condemned."

Our film only contains one or two swear words so our film is fitted to a 12A rating.


Our film is definitely suitable to be shown as a 12A, which is what we were aiming for.

Supernatural thriller posters

I looked at top 3 Supernatural thrillers rated by IMDb and their original posters. All of the posters introduce one of the main characters from the film, usually the character the mystery of the plot resolves around. The boy (with a gift of communication with the dead)  from Sixth Sense, the mother (trying to solve the mystery of invisible people living in her new family house) from The Others, and the mysterious old man/ woman from the Skeleton Key. The aim of the  posters is to give people a hint about what the film will be about, and tease.

changes to characters identity and costume - Alex

due to the new introduction of drugs as a theme in our film, we decided that the "average Joe" look about Alex didn't really suit the drug use involved, as the average Joe is rarely represented as been a drug taker.

we did however feel like we had no need to change the characters personality and general self , as he wasn't like an extrovert exciting character , and he could be classed into any type of social group , due do his , somewhat dull and easy going aura, which made the film relatable to any kind of  audience

we felt the best way to change the feel and representation of this character was through his costume , as we decided to add a brown leather jacket to give a shady , maybe even a kind of hard , powerful feel to him, and a denim shirt. the costume changes can also be linked to a kind of "rock and roll" lifestyle, which is heavily linked to drugs

drug use in our film

in our film , drugs are a major part of the storyline , so we had to think carefully of the way in which we went about having them represented in our film , wether we wanted them to be seen as good or bad , if they helped out or got people into danger.

we decided that we didn't want drugs to be seen as a good thing in our film , as this not only would go against stereotypical convention and representation of drugs in modern cinema , and we also didn't want any controversy surrounding the film.

we also had to think carefully about the substance we use in our film , as we needed a hallucinogenic for our storyline , however we needed something that wasn't too controvertial and hardcore , such as class A drugs like cocaine or heroin and we needed something that would be easy to be shown as been taken on camera.

in the end we decided the best drug to use would be magic mushrooms , as we were able to easily get hold of normal mushrooms and dry them out which really made them look like believable magic mushrooms , and this also enabled us to take them on camera

Drug Use in Cinema

drugs have been a big part in cinema in the recent years , and are used much more prominently now than they were during the early years of cinema , it was a very taboo thing in the early days and rarely used unless extremely necessary. however no it is not only used and taken in films , it is also used as a storyline in many films and is the central theme in films , such as in trains potting , possibly the most famous cases of drugs in cinema and more importantly a great film.


another thing that has started happening in recent years is the introduction of drugs represented in a positive and light hearted light in films. Films such as project x almost encourage drug use as a way of having a good time , however there area always underlying problems when drug are seen , such as crazy dealers in the case of project x , this is so the filmmakers aren't seen as condoning the use of drugs in their films.

although drug use is on the rise in the film sector , the major parts of the industry such as hollywood , still tend to shy away from using drugs in their major blockbusters due to the controversy still surrounding drugs.

 famous films including drug use

train spotting

project x

the hangover

M. Night Shyamalan's Sixth Sense Opening Sequence

In the opening sequence of Sixth Sense, the key
factor in creating the "supernatural" climax is the music. The mysterious classic/ drama tune is playing all the way through, slowly appearing, stretching credits, on a pitch black background. The song on its own is indicating the climax of the film, it's a rather dark, mysterious theme tune. Right at the start of the credits, after the main producers credits and main actor's credits, the title of the film appears. After the appearance of the title, theme tune is disrupted with odd worrying noise (sounding as if someone or something disrupted the song ...) , playing with sound/ music in this way can automatically make the audience assume the film will  be full of worrying, intense, mysterious moments.


The music doesn't stop right until the credits fade out and the light bulb in the first shot of the first scene fully switches on. Slow ignition of the bulb calms down the theme song, until it fully fades out. The first scene is based in a cellar. The second shot after shot of the bulb, is taken from behind of the wine shelf, a woman walks down

stairs and approaches the wine shelf. The camera is tracking her movement as she bends down to look for particular wine bottle, and as she stands 

back up staright to reach the bottle she was looking for. Camera zooms in a little after she picks her bottle, showing her reaction to something she felt or heard behind her, putting a little bit of tension and suspicion in the scene. The shot changes, as she turns round, frames the woman knees up, from side, showing her worrying reaction to whatever she heard/ felt behind her.

The shot changes, into a long shot, taken from behind of the cellar stairs. The woman is stood up straight holding the bottle tight, looking stil round for couple of secons as if she heard someone, shivers, and runs out of the cellar as if something/ someone scared her.  The combination of the shots used in this scene make the audience feel like there is another character/ person in the cellar. The slow and careful tracking shot as the woman is picking the wine is made to look like there is someone is observing her, the zoom in on her face experssion as she hears/ feels something behind her, the quick reaction shot as she turns round, and then she runs up the stairs and out of the cellar. The entire first scene already makes the audience anticipate something worrying, mysterious, abnormal.

Character Profile: Agnar

Name: Agnar

Age: Infinite

Occupation: Gatekeeper of Purgatory

Personality/Traits: Smart, Polite, generous but also cruel.

Function in Narrative: Offers Alex a chance to save his own life, renders the film a mystery as whether the experience was a drug trip or actual events

Agnar is the character the the dilemma of our film centres around. Agnar is the gatekeeper of purgatory and offers Alex a choice, either accept he's dead and await the judgement of the gods on whether he goes to heaven or hell, or save his own life but risk being trapped in limbo forever.

   

We wanted Agnar's identity to remain unknown to make the character that bit more sinister and un-nerving. His unidentifiable persona and position of power make this character seem like he would deceive every person who crosses him. However, the dialogue in the film between Agnar and Alex lets the audience see the charming side of Agnar, the audience will almost begin to trust him as he tells Alex of the consequences if he fails.

   

Aganr's character is heavily influenced by the character V from V for vendetta. In this film V represents an entity or idea, and we never get to see his face. In the film he is incredibly smart and well thought out and we wanted to show this in Agnar. Agnar is very well spoken and polite which oozes intelligence. However  Agnar has a dark side, he traps people in limbo forever if they fail to save their life which differentiates him from V as V is the protagonist in V for Vendetta whereas Agnar could be either a protagonist or antagonist depending on Alex's attempt to cheat death. 

Similar short film review

For a similar short film review I used a film called "Room 8" by James W. Griffiths. This film is a thriller that also contains supernatural elements like our film. The film is similar to ours because the antagonist doesn't seem hostile, but then unveils him self as dark. In this film the antagonist has a box which is a separate dimension, parallel to our world, only smaller and contained in a box. The antagonist tricks the protagonist into thinking he can use it to escape the prison, but then he traps him in a matchbox, presumably forever, along with several other people. He then orders the guards to send in another prisoner. In our film Agnar is gatekeeper of purgatory and has the power to trap people in purgatory forever so this film relates to ours strongly.

 The film starts with a man (Character A) who looks like he's been beaten, being transported into prison. The weather is snowy and the lighting grim. He's ushered into a prison cell where an old man (Character B) is waiting for him.

   He tries to converse with the old man but the old man refuses to give him his name or tell him how long he's been imprisoned. The camera angles in these opening shots are strange because even though Character A is being imprisoned the camera angles are level or low, portraying him as a powerful character, however this could be to emphasise a roll reversal as Character A is imprisoned by Character B inside a match box later on in the film.
 
   They then have a brief conversation after Character A discovers a red box on the bed. I think the box was coloured red to represent danger, in our film our Agnar wears a red tie. Character A asks about the box, but Character B insists that he shouldn't open the box because he might regret it, but says it in such a way that it plays on Character A's curiosity.

   Character A decides to open the box and discovers it's supernatural abilities. At first he's intrigued by the box and plays around with it. However he soon realises the box's potential to help him escape from prison. He gets the old man to open the box for him so he can jump over the wall and escape from prison. He bids him farewell and jumps over what he thinks is the wall of the prison but is actually the wall of the box. Character A starts running, but not realising that he is actually just running along the prison floor. The old man then traps him inside a matchbox and puts him in a drawer with lots of other matchboxes with people insiode.

This is a strong relation to our film because in our film Agnar says that if Alex fails to save his own life he will be trapped in purgatory forever with "the rest of them". The difference in this film however is the role reversal. At first the old man is  portrayed as quiet and feeble but in the end we see that he is a master of deception and traps people in prison, presumably forever. In our film Agnar is always portrayed as powerful, but he also has a forgiving side which allows Alex to save his own life.

After this scene there is a track in shot going closer to the old man's back, this could be to represent that we don't know his true identity. He then turns his head to the side and calls for the next prisoner, implying that he just traps person after person. This ending has mystery, which is similar to ours because in opur film Alex thinks he's saved his own life and escaped Agnar, but his friend Zac comes to talk to him and shows that he found a mask identical to Agnar's on the way to his house.

Progress report 4

This week we have begun shooting our film, We have fully filmed the first scene in which Alex buys drugs from his local dealer. We have plans to film later on this week which should cover the majority of our short film.

Research into title sequences

upon looking at title sequences in this genre , it was clear to see that most of the title sequences in this genre follow quite a similar pattern. The title sequences are usually very minimalistic , as it enables the film to give the important information that is needed to be include in the opening titles , such as the names of the distributor , actors , and all other important information , however also not eluding to the storyline and giving anything away , because one of the main reason of a thriller is for people to be shocked and gripped by the story , so revealing too much in the opening will just defeat the point of a thriller. However, they are complex, gripping, and often have subliminal meanings behind them, this is needed because for a thriller to be successful, the audience must be gripped and encapsulated in the story the entire way through, so they pic up all aspects of the story and don't get confused in parts, due to the stories been very deep and hard to understand in some places so they can't lose interest even in the titles.

to show this,  I have selected two separate title sequences.

Treatment

Title:Trip?

Length:5 minutes

Certificate:12A

Distributor:Shorts international

Audience:Our audience will be anyone over the age of 12, however the main target is males aged 15-20, because they will identify more with the man character who is a male who goes to college and lives a regular life before the events of the film. Their main interests will include supernatural things (e.g. ghost stories, urban myths) and will probably have a large knowledge about things like purgatory, heaven and hell. They may also be fans of V for vendetta, the sixth sense, resident evil, supernatural(TV) e.t.c.

Synopsis: it starts with a boy getting up, getting ready to go to college. When he's walking down the street he is stabbed, and then he wakes up in a room, on the floor with a stab wound. He is accompanied by a man in a shirt and tie, wearing a mask when he wakes up. He asks the man where he is and the masked man explains that he's dead and he's in purgatory, but doesn't reveal his identity.
   The man in the mask then offers him a chance to save his own life, all Alex has to do is walk through a door the man in the mask points out, however, if he fails to save his life he'll be stuck in purgatory forever. Alex walks through the door and he's back at the scene of the stabbing, he sees the guy who stabbed him approaching him, so Alex runs from him.
   There is a chase scene and Alex gets away, however when alex thinks he's escaped, he's is confronted by the masked man who raises a gun to Alex. Alex screams "What are you doing?! This isn't what you said!" The masked man then replies "I lied."  There is an extreme close up of the trigger being pulled and then it cuts to a sheet of red, and then the man in the masks pops up, starts laughing, pulls out a notebook and adds another mark to his tally, then walks through another door, where another person is waiting.

Suggested elements:Uses a genre which is rarely used in other films (Supernatural thriller), offers a unique view of afterlife and death.

A dark story with unexpected twists and a dark ending.

Teaser poster

Progress Report 3

Today we've decided on our film title; Trip?. The production logo and the poster are finished. We've made a couple significant changes in our script, by changing Ryan's character (Alex) into a hippy drug addict, experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs and getting into a debt with his local drug dealers. The debt and the addiction throw him into a pitt he can't come out of...

Prodcution Logo (Revolver Productions).

This is our final production logo. It was made using photoshop, I used Mexican "day of the dead" skull/ mask and two revolvers as a simple combination, My interest in world cultures and their traditions helped me in finding an interesting design. Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.

Production logo

This is a production logo I have made using photoshop and final cut. This will improve my skill in photoshop and will help make my poster better when we make it later on in the year

Music used in thriller films

The music used in thriller films typically starts soft and quiet and then gradually gets louder and denser as the action intensifies to a climax in the scene. A good example of this would be the scene from Lord of The rings : Fellowship of the Ring, in the action scene leading up to Boromir's death. The music gets louder and more intense as the scene intensifies, and then suddenly stops when Boromir is hit by an arrow.
   

We plan to implement this same technique in our film when Alex tries to escape the thug who tries to beat him/ kill him.
   Even though action scenes are high in intensity and drama, classical music is very commonly, if not predominantly used in these types of scenes. One would think that intense music like Rock would be used, but classical music often gives the best effect.
   Another example of this would be in the standoff scene in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, however in this scene the music is the device used to create the tension and drama. In reality, all that is happening in the scene is three men looking at each other in anticipation of the draw, however, the music makes the scene incredibly intense. The music get louder and denser as the scene gets nearer to the draw, and then stops Angel Eyes is shot by Blondie.

risk assesment

Possible Distributors

Dimension Films is a major American film production and distribution studio currently owned by The Walt Disney Studios (prior to 1 of October 2005 owned by Miramax Films).The studio founded success in the earlier years releasing films such as Scream, The Faculty, Scary Movie, Dracula 2000, Spy Kids, The Others, Scary Movie 3, Bad Santa, Sin City, The Brothers Grimm, and The Amityville Horror.

I chose Dimension films as one of the possible mainstream distributors for our films because of the films they've previously made. Most of the successful films made/ distributed by Dimension Films were aimed at young people, teenage audience, stories mainly focused on a particular family, group of teenagers, or one or two ordinary youngsters. Films like Scream, The Others, The Amityville Horror, The Faculty TV series. 

Metrodome Group Ltd is a London-based company that owns, manages and distributes film,
TV and digital content. The Company operates through two divisions: 
Metrodome Distribution (features films and home entertainment in the UK) 
and Hollywood Classics. The Company's library of rights includes over 300 feature films.
I thought of Metrodome group as one of the possible distributors because it's a it's a fast 
growing British distributor, originally made to focus on independent British titles with potential. 
There are a number of very successful American and British titles Metrodome distributed; 
Saw (2004), Inception (2010), , Zombieland (2009), The Phantom of The Opera (1925), 
V for Vendetta (2006). Our film, one of the main characters in particular (Agnar) was inspired by
two of the well known titles (from thriller/action, and thriller/horror genre) Metrodome 
distributed; V for Vendetta and The Phantom of The Opera.
Metrodome distributes and produces titles for a wide variety of audience, strating from British horrors
and thrillers ending on Asian and Eastern European history films and Dramas. 

Research into film posters

Posters for supernatural thrillers/horrors tend to use darkness a lot to represenet the sinister, dark natures of their stories. One example of this is the sixth sense:

A lot of this film poster is black, which gives the impression that this is quite a dark film. The main character is shown as a silhouette, suggesting that he may have things to hide which will be revealed through the movie, and suggests that this film is likely to have plot twists and surprises (e.g. Bruce willis' character being dead). The use of the six acting as a metaphorical 'light' that people see when they die implies that this film will be about death and ghosts, showing the audience straight away that it is going to have a supernatural element to it. The tagline at the bottom 'touch taste hear smell see fear' shows the horror aspects to this film and shows the audience that this is going to be a film based around being scared.






The posters for the woman in black also use darkness to represent the sinister aspects of the film. In this first one, the text has flared vertically, creating a very ghostly effect, implying supernatural aspects. The rhetorical question 'Do you belive in ghosts?' is a much more obvious representation of the prescence of supernatural beings in the film, however this also targets the reader directly and creates fear on a much more personal level. The ghost in the background again creates a fearful mood to the film and the fact that the main character is looking away suggests he is in danger. Also, only half of Daniel Radcliffe's face can be seen, suggesting he either has something to hide at the beginning of the film, or the scarring events of the film are the things he is trying to hide. This adds the thriller aspect to the poster.



This poster again uses a flare effect on the text to create a ghostly effect. This provides consistency over all of the posters to send the same message of terror and supernatural things being a part of this film. The graveyard in the background represents death, representing the darkness of the narrative. Daniel radcliffe also has a shadow over half of his face creating the same effect as in the first poster implying that he is trying to hide something. The dark blue of the poster creates a more ghostly effect than full black because ghosts are regularly shown as transparent dark blue.

In both of these posters, Daniel Radcliffe's name is the only one shown as he is the most famous actor invloved, allowing the makers of the film to market his name to the audience. We however won't be able to incorporate this into our film because we have a very low budget and so cannot afford big names to participate in our movie.

The film poster for mama uses a large amount of darkness, about half of the poster is pitch black to create a spooky mood. The rest of the poster is quite gritty which also contributes to this effect. The person the child is hiding behind looks dead and zombie like. This is the aspect of the poster which shows the audience that the film is about ghosts/dead people and will have a horror aspect to it. The tagline 'A mothers love is forever' takes a quite sweet phrase and puts it in the context of a horror thriller poster and it twists it to be quite sinister.


The fonts in posters for supernatural thrillers are often block capitals which creates a very serious mood and makes the poster stand out as a horror/supernatural thriller and not as a light hearted comedy. Alternatively, the text in the sixth sense looks scratched, which also creates a horror effect. This effect is also used in the se7en title sequence, which was also a supernatural thriller.

Representation: Religion

In our film, religion is represented as a primitive, outdated idea, as Alex is exposed to the areas that they speak of and discovers that they are nothing like they are written to be like. Alex discovers purgatory to be handled by a charismatic but dark character and is nothing like what is published in the bible. He even gets the chance to cheat death, where is that written?
   Religion is basically negligible in our film to start with, but what little we see of issues touching upon religion, religion is represented as something that is becoming less and less important in society and is beginning to be looked at more as a fiction rather than absolute fact.

Influences on our film (Narrative)

1. Religion
The theme of heaven and hell is key for our film, given that the major setting is in limbo. Limbo is a place in some faiths where people who aren't evil enough to go to hell and not good enough to go to heaven go when they die. People who go there usually spend a large amount of time there to cleanse their sins so they can gain access to heaven. Limbo or purgatory is used a lot in supernatural works in all forms, such as TV, films, games etc. The version we use in not specific to one particular religion.

Purgatory/ Limbo is often showcased as being a dark place, sometimes a forest. Characters are often stuck in limbo, however there is often a way out which the main character will have to fight to get out.

2. The triumph of bad over good

At the end of our film our main character is defeated and trapped in limbo, presumably forever, and our villain wins by trapping alex there. There are many films in which the villain wins, especially around supernatural thriller/horrors. One example is the woman in black. At the end of this film, despite thinking that the ghost has gone, the main character and his son is killed by the ghost. This film has had a huge impact on our ending as they are very similar, because in the woman in black the main character thinks he is safe, however the ghost comes back to kill him and in our film our main character thinks he is safe and resurrected however our villain comes back to kill him.

Sinister also has this type of ending, where the family leaves the house to escape the ghost haunting them, only to discover that the ghost killed all the previous victims after they moved. He is then killed and the ghost wins by claiming another child to his 'collection'. This is another example of the good guys thinking that they are safe but then the villain coming back for them and killing them.

Agnar. Character Profile. ( Inspirations ).

Agnar's character was inspired by various Hollywood blockbuster characters. The tormentor from the famous horror blockbuster Scream 

was one of the first inspirations. Cunning, mysterious, looney cold blooded killer. However most of the Agnar's traits we took from V from V for Vendetta, and the classic character of The Phantom of The Opera written by Gaston Leroux. He's a dark, smart, very organised, and ruthless character. Just like the phantom of the opera, Agnar is the phantom of the purgatory,  a fallen angel sending the souls that don't qualify for heaven or hell to the limbo.

influences on our film (costume)

for the character of agnar , we decided to base his costume on the character from the hitman film / game series , as we needed a sophisticated and formal looking suit for the character , and something to represent danger or evil , and the colour of the red tie indicates this well.

for the mugger , we decided that this costume needed to be all black or dark colours with something covering the face , as seen on the film attack the block , where all the main characters dress like this , and of course these characters are council estate thugs , who rob , mug , and generally cause trouble , and this costume is very stereotypical of people of this nature.

for the character of alex, we wanted a costume that showed the mundane average personality of alex , so we looked at the character of everyday tv families , characters such as homer simpson , peter griffin , and hank from king of the hill all fit the normal looking average guy criteria , and every single one of these characters wear a plain white t-shirt and jeans , which is what we decided to base the costume on.

costume planning

Agnar

Mugger

Alex