Re-ordering of beginning to clarify Plot

Here we have started to re-order the opening in particular to make sure plot and characters are firmly established. We have tried to focus on making the key plot points (the kidnapping) and the relationships (journalist and photographer already friends; photographer is kidnapped girl's boyfriend; Manovich is reluctant to help) as clear as possible.

Starting Production Ident

Early work on our animated sequence:

Draft Magazine Cover

Points to Consider:

- We think this is the right kind of grouping

- Dark clothes and background might make the whole thing too dark
- Our choice of font / colour for the title has to work across our products so we need to make some decisions about what this is

Main Points Taken from Audience Feedback

Key Points in Response to Audience Feedback

We have now watched our audience feedback and these are the main things we have taken out of it:
 

The order, it didn’t seem to flow or tell the story well so we should re-order it so it makes more sense - it was clear most of the audience were confused about plot / relationships.

Add in some action shots, this helps with the pace of the trailer toward the end.

Add music, even though it might not be our final music it still helps with the atmosphere of the piece and it's easier to tell what's working and what isn't.

Take out and cut longer shots, this helps the trailer flow better and also helps with the pace  allowing it to feel a lot more like a trailer.

Re-voice some scenes, some of the dialogue was too quiet and the re-voice will help with the telling of the story.

Add L cuts to help with pace and story telling.
Make sure we establish relationships clearly.

Draft Poster

We have chosen the idea of having our poster based around the main character's face in close up with writing on a screen reflected across it. This text should give clues as to the main plot of the film and form part of the 'tease' element of the overall campaign. We have created a draft version of this to see if it is an idea we would continue with:

One thing we have picked up on is that the writing should be flipped to suggest a reflection:

Points to Consider:

 

- an interesting idea

- playing with the text could be a creative way to add to the 'tease' element

- not sure this has the impact we want

- might appeal to established fans ie having read the book the film is supposedly based on

- but does it have the kind of instant impact needed for new fans?

- does the picture carry the narrative or do you have to read?

- how many people stand and read film posters?



Audience Feedback

Here we have a Year 12 class watching and commenting on our rough cut. It's interesting to see their faces as they watch as this gives you a much better idea of the instinctive reactions than anything they say. The decision was made to let them feed back to the teacher, who had a list of questions we wanted to know the answer to. We are sure they were all more honest and critical than they would have been if we'd been there, and we wanted their real reactions, not polite ones.

First Rough Cut for Audience Feedback

This is a combined version of our individual edits to create a rough cut of the whole trailer. We can already see the main problems with it and it is very far from the finished piece, but we are happy to get some feedback on this because we can see the technical issues for ourselves but what we don;t know is how clearly the plot comes over to people viewing it cold. This is the key information we need.