Planning: narrative moodboard

Planning: choosing an idea

In order to decide between the two initial ideas that we had, we created a list for each idea that stated the positive and negative aspects of each narrative that we have come up with.
The first idea that we came up with was based on the abusive relationship as a result of the husband becoming an alcoholic due to the stress of his new job. We came up with the most advantages for this idea, some of which include; it subverts romantic stereotypes therefore allowing for a bigger target audience, the idea is unique and not like many other films that are on the market, and that carrying out this idea will allow for a variety of camera shots and makeup techniques to create a sense of reality. However we also found some negatives of the idea -  it could be very difficult to film the abusive scene and therefore we will need very skilled actors that can act this narrative out realistically.



The second idea that we came up with is based around a happy couple and the depressed alcoholic best friend, until the husband steps into the road while the friend is erratically driving. The widow grows close to the friend, who is guilt ridden and grieving. Eventually the audience will see that the two characters fall in love, but the trailer won't show any physical romance as this will keep the audience guessing and wanting to see the full film when it is released. For the idea there were fewer advantages, although we did think of a few; this trailer idea follows a more stereotypical romance genre narrative that the first idea so this will allow us to include more conventions of the genre such as flowers and physical romance. However this idea produced the most negatives, some including that it would be difficult to film the scene involving the car crash, as we obviously wouldn't be able to film it in entirety. We also felt that our editing skills would need to be very goo in order to make the car crash scene loom realistic; something the we thought we may not be able to achieve.

Having evaluated each of our ideas and discussed all of the positive and negative aspects of each individual idea, we decided that the trailer that we felt we could make the most successfully was idea 1, therefore this is the one we will be pursuing. As shown below, we detailed the narrative of the trailer and how we would show it through film. The trailer will begin with two main characters who are happily married and it will connote them as being in love and settled. Gradually throughout the trailer the audience will see glimpses of the male character, who will late be shown as the antagonist, becoming increasingly stressed and consuming alcohol to combat this. Eventually this gradual drinking will escalate to him becoming an alcoholic, causing the relationship to turn unstable as the husband begins to abuse the female protagonist. This will spiral out of control leaving the wife visibly beaten, and the trailer ending on a cliffhanger where the audience are left guessing the fate of the wife. 

This is a very sensitive subject that needs careful handling as it may affect people who have experienced/experiencing abuse. As a result of this, we will need to be mindful when we are filming the abusive scenes due to the distress it may cause. 

Planning: initial idea 2

The second idea that we have for a narrative for our film trailer involves a married couple out for a walk, when the best friend accidentally kills the husband when drink driving.
The narrative will switch between the happy couple and the depressed alcoholic best friend, until the husband steps into the road while the friend is erratically driving. The widow grows close to the friend, who is guilt ridden and grieving. The trailer will suggest that something romantic will happen between them but it will be cut before the audience sees anything.

This means that we will show the disruption very soon into the beginning of the trailer, as this is the main part of the storyline. There will be a gradual showing of the resolution as it will occur over a period of time and won't be a sudden realisation that the characters have. As a result of the narrative, it won't strictly follow Todorov's theory as they will be alternated and mixed up.

The idea follows more of a conventional romance storyline than our first idea, as it will conclude with the two main characters falling in love; which is a stereotypical convention of the romance genre. As a result of this we will be able to include multiple stereotypes of the genre, such as flowers and high key lighting as this all connotes happiness and love. 

Planning: initial idea 1

Our first initial idea is based around the idea of a relationship gone wrong scenario. The main male protagonist will have a very busy and stressful work life, and he relaxes from this by drinking alcohol; throughout the trailer we will try and bring in the idea of alcoholism and the effect that it has on people's lives. As a result of his drinking, he takes his anger and stress out on is wife through abusing her after consuming alcohol. The narrative will begin with an equilibrium where the male and female are clearly in love, however this will deteriorate and the violence and abuse will continually get worse.

This isn't a conventional romance narrative as it avoids the resolution at the end in order to keep the suspense for the audience, however the trailer will signify to the audience that the ending isn't happy. We felt that carrying out a romance film that isn't stereotypically romantic would subvert the conventions of the genre but still contain enough of the features to be considered a romance; we thought that doing this may attract a bigger target audience as there would be a cross over be
tween two genres.

This follows a similar story to 'Shattered Dreams', a film about a gradual development of domestic abuse after a woman's husband gets a new job for the government. It stars  Lindsay Wagner, Michael Nouri, Georgann Johnson, and this was filmed in 1990, and so we want to create a modern perspective of this issue as it isn't something that is seen very often.

Planning: romance mood board

Introducing main task

The brief that we have chosen from the OCR specification is to create a promotion package for a new film, where we will create a film trailer and two ancillary products; these will be a magazine cover that features the film and a poster for the film.
We decided to do this because we felt that we would be able to build on our knowledge that we learned through last years course work where we created a short film trailer. Having achieved a good grade in the course work last year, we wanted to improve on our skills as well as develop new ideas in a genre that we haven't worked with before.

The genre of the film trailer will be romance as we haven't had any experience in this area of film and therefore it will help to expand on the general knowledge about film making; it is also an interesting genre as most romance films follow quite strict conventions, and we feel that we would like to try and subvert these.

The reason behind us choosing the magazine cover and film poster varies; both Megan and I have had previous experience in creating a magazine cover as this was part of the GCSE media course and we both did well in this, so it will allow us to use past knowledge to inform our work this year. We felt inspired to make a poster for the film as personally I have seen some film posters that really captured my attention and I'd really like to try and recreate our own version in the same style.
This is one of the posters that I have seen that in my opinion was really effective at advertising the film; i think that the way the female protagonist is shown to be ill as she is wearing an oxygen tube, it signifies that this could be a main part of the film. The presence of a male and female in the poster represents that it is a romance film as this is a stereotypical convention of most romance films.

Initial research - pitch reflection

From my pitch presentation, we gained some invaluable feedback that will help us to make a decision on which idea we choose, how we plan on filming it and various other suggestions that were given to us.
The majority of the audience ruled out the second idea that we had, which was based on a conventional romance narrative with two best friends falling in love; they felt that this was too generic and didn't allow us to explore more complicated and unique ideas.
There was an equal split between the first and second idea, although we gained lots of ideas that eventually will help us to decide which one we want to choose. The first pitch idea is based around
a married couple out for a walk, when the best friend accidentally kills the husband when drink driving. The narrative will switch between the happy couple and the depressed alcoholic best friend, until the husband steps into the road while the friend is erratically driving. The widow grows close to the friend, who is guilt ridden and grieving. The trailer will suggest that something romantic will happen between them but it will be cut before the audience sees anything. The audience said that they thought the concept was exciting and interesting, with the element of shock that will make it differ from other romance films. They also suggested that this idea would allow us to use a variety of editing techniques as the narrative would mean we could use a GoPro on the bonnet of a car to film the 'accident'.

The third pitch idea was about a romance gone wrong - where a healthy relationship deteriorates as a result of an alcoholic husband being abusive towards his wife.
The cause of the husbands changing attitude is to do with a stressful job, he starts to put work life over his wife and their romantic, simple love starts to turn bitter and twisted.
This idea will hopefully produce an unconventional romance trailer as there potentially won’t be a resolution for this trailer, going against Todorovs theory. The audience who received our pitch said that this idea was interesting as it follows an unconventional narrative that doesn't include stereotypical romance features. They did however question how we would be able to show our technical ability through the editing as it could be very difficult to show the violence in the film; this could be solved by using match on action edits to show different activities merging into one.

 From this we will think of the advantages and disadvantages of each pitch and make a decision as to which one we will carry out - there may be chance where we somehow combine the two to create a mix of both pitches.