My film pitch

Olivia Calleja

My synopsis

In my story I want the protagonist: Nina ( which means strong) to be a young teenage girl fighting for survival against people/ a mafia sort of organisation. They will be going after her as she has a secret- She’s been the subject to a medical experiment- unknowingly. This experiment has not caused her to change physically but she has turned almost robot like strength. But she does know that people are coming for her so she needs to be trained to retaliate their attack. She is trained by her friend/sibling (undecided) but they get murdered in the process so she attacks them first trying to find out the truth about what is happening. Based on HANNA.

Genre and location ideas:

My genre: Thriller, this is because I think that you can create a successful thriller with a low budget yet it still be very effective with the use of some horror film tricks like handheld camera shots as this creates a shaky feel which adds to the tension and almost speeds up the scene.I am very interested in adding an action feel to my film but I lack the equipment/ budget to produce special effects, so it might not be very effective.I intend on showing the genre in the trailer by having lots of shots very fast paced, shadows, tense music with some breathing layered over the top.

Location: I could use the wooded areas in my hometown, the underground car parks or abandoned buildings- these would be the typical places to shoot a horror. I could even use a normal building but alter the light intensity.

Stars:

I would use some of my friends to star in my film. I would use the ones that take A level drama, or have previous experience in acting. This is because I want to make it as realistic as possible. I want the female protagonist to be of the age of 12-15. This is because I want her to give the appearance of an innocent, weak girl but actually be very strong.I want my film to have a female protagonist. This is a key point for me in whatever genre I choose.

Stars- cont.

The reason that I am not using famous actors is because I want them to be unknown to my audience for example if I used Daniel Radcliffe my audience would just see him as Harry Potter not the character that I would have cast him as. I also do not have the funds to hire out professional actors.

Sound:

I want to create a tense atmosphere. Sort of eerie piano, electronic synth sounds- Not going into sci-fi though! I want diegetic sounds of breathing for example if running.I don’t want any words in it only instrumental as I think if I were to have words, they would have to be meaningful to the story I’m creating and I think that it’s very difficult to find something like that unless you create it yourself. Non- diegetic sounds imported in to create a sound bridge to create a tense atmosphere is a very strong convention with thrillers.

Narrative:• BINARY OPPOSITES: the girl and the organisation

she is hiding from then later attacking..

• I am trying to steer away from using the generic stereotype characters.

Emotional content- sinister - suspense.

• Todorov’s equilibrium theory:• Equilibrium: her living/practising in the woods-

training, running etc.• Disruption: they kill her friend so she is now at risk

of being found, but she goes on the attack instead of going on the run so she has to overcome the challenges they face her with.

• New equilibrium: She conquers them so all is good, but, I do want to leave it on a sort of cliff hanger as to if there is more threat or not.

Conventions of a thriller:

I have noticed that all thrillers that I have seen often use tracking and pan shots- Mainly in the opening of the film, this builds up suspense and mystery intriguing the audience with the lack of identity. Thrillers often use close ups to draw the audience into feeling as if they are in the scene. They also tend to use long shots to show the audience of the action that is about to occur.

Thrillers often use high and low angle shots: The high angle shots indicate the power of the character, if the angle is high the audience are instantly aware of the rank of the character it is often used for the villain.

Jump cuts are very common in thrillers.

’This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a discontinuous way. For this reason, jump cuts are considered a violation of classical continuity editing, which aims to give the appearance of continuous time and space in the story-world by de-emphasizing editing. Jump cuts, in contrast, draw attention to the constructed nature of the film’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_cut I think that jump cuts tend to speed up the pace of the film increasing the tension.

With their credits most films introduce the most well known/ most admired production company or actor. I think that this just increases the publicity of that person/company even more, but I think not naming a actor can alienate the audience therefore possibly making the story seem more realistic.Thrillers often put their credits onto a black screen with non-diegetic music playing in the background which really sets up the mood and atmosphere for the rest of the film.

Director/My inspiration:

• Director: I will take inspiration from directors such as Joe Wright who directed the action thriller ‘HANNA’. I like the shots that he uses especially in the opening sequence and the ‘fairy land bit’.

• I want to use HANNA as my main source of inspiration due to the female protagonist. I think it’s something that the mainstream audience isn’t really used to. This gives an interesting twist to the female role which I’m really interested to work on.

I really like this shot as the camera is on the ground with the character, this really puts the audience in the shot with her, adding to the tension in the scene. I also like the lighting in this shot, the darkness in the top right corner coming down shadowing on her face really adds to the mystery and just this shot alone tells the story of what’s happening in the scene, you can tell that she’s hiding from something. You can tell this by her eye-line and also the low angle close up shot adds to the image of her hiding.

This shot is from the opening sequence where she shoots the animal. I really like the depth of field in this image, the way she’s completely in focus but her surroundings are blurred really gives the feel that she’s completely in control. Her physicality with the strong stance with her arms fully extended outwards with the gun with no emotion in her facial expressions really shows to me as an audience that she is in control and isn’t the typical female figure. This is something I would really like to touch on with my film possible by using a shot like this.

Target audience:

• As I would like my film to focus on the female role and different ways it can be interpreted I would aim my film at the female gender.

• Using teenage actors my film will relate to the teenage age group/ young adult: 15-25.

• I would say that it will be mainly aimed at the females this would be the preferred audience but I think that males would be interested in watching as it’s an action/ thriller /horror. Which is stereotypically aimed at the `male gender and it will star some attractive females. Men would be the oppositional audience.

Poster examples:

HANNA poster:

What I like about this poster is the simple lettering it’s bold and plain white yet still give a very strong effect by the shape of the letters, it looks like very long strong strokes of a pen/whatever to create it giving a feel of strength.I like the tag line ‘ADAPT OR DIE’. This really gives a feel for the film and sets the audience up for what they’re about to watch.

SALT poster:I think that this poster really does portray the mystery element of the film as it has the black back ground in which you see nothing, all that this image is, is Angelina Jolie. This is something that obviously immensely helped to promote the film. I unfortunately will not have the luxury of having a well known actor, so I think that I would still have my protagonist as the main image taking up the foreground but I would probably have a few props or location hints in there to give some more story to my poster than just ‘hey look at my actor’.

I really like the way that ‘SALT’ has been written twice, once in bold white but pretty standard lettering but also, it has been layered on at a low opacity a lot larger this I think looks really effective as a film poster and it also gets the title through to the audience twice in one image so will possibly stick in their minds more.

White Out poster:

I like the ice like colouration of this poster. It gives a cold fearless image. The ice colour also gives the audience an indication to the location of this film- Antarctica.This poster has a scratched effect over-layed onto it. I really like the fact the image fades down into plain white and the writing is on top of that instead of covering up the image, I think that this makes it a lot easier to read and so the readers will focus on it more.

THE THING poster:

I think that it lacks a lot of the detail that the others I like it because it doesn’t name the actors or the director, which makes it seem more real and almost mysterious. This film poster is very simplistic. It lacks in text and detail yet still gets an eerie, mysterious and quite scary feel across.I think that mystery is a big thing for this poster as it only show one single image which is almost distorted in the title. Although my film isn’t necessarily going to be a mystery I think it’s very important that you don’t give too much away in the poster, trailer or magazine, so this is something I will have to look at in a lot greater detail.

What I’ve taken from these posters.

• I think that I will stick with the mysterious element by having either shadowed pictures or low intensity lighting or even just a plain black background.

• One thing all of the poster have in common is the capital lettered title, this to me really makes me take notice as something important and is something that I definitely would use.

• These posters all have a tag line that increases the interest in the film for me personally, I will think of one for mine once I have my final film idea down.

MAGAZINE

My magazine will be of the film genre type. It will be specifically aimed at new upcoming films, new film festivals/ film festival awards that recognise new directors etc. The edition of the magazine that I will create will specify in Thrillers for example Looper, Taken 2 and Argo. the cover will feature my star. It will include a section on me as a director also as indicated by one of the cover lines.

The Magazine cover

EMPIRE

I found it very hard to find many images of a woman on the cover of the film magazine ‘EMPIRE’. This might be because the magazine is mainly aimed at males, and the masculinity of men. Which is highlighted by the colour scheme throughout the magazine- very dark. There is no fashion things on the women, no gossip, as it’s a film magazine so maybe they feel like they don’t need to include women as much? Or that men are generally the main characters therefore the centre of attention hence a lot more male cover photos than there is of women.

MAGAZINE COVERS

Vanity Fair

What I don’t like about this image is the fact she is so sexualised. Her breasts are the focus of the image. I do not want my magazine cover to be sexualised in any way, this is because I want to show the strength of my character and I also want her to be young around 12-15 years of age so sexualisation is out of the question.

Interview

What I really like about this image is the tones in the photo, it feels a lot more natural than all the clearly studio airbrushed shots.I like the way the mast head is very large and almost takes up a third of the entire cover. I also like the font chosen I think it really complements the feminine side as it looks like it’s been written in lipstick. I like the fact her make-up is done in a very natural way. She is wearing stylish clothing but not sexual this gives her a strong but still feminine feel which is something I will look to replicate for my magazine cover. I think that I will use the colours of this magazine, the simple white writing with the natural light in the photo.

Name for my magazine

Bellatrix- female warrior

Virtue- something good within

Neoteric- new, modern

Genre shown:

I am showing my chosen genre which is a thriller in my magazine/poster by:- Scratchy writing- The language used in the tag line- Showing the girl holding a weapon- Not overly expressing her femininity - Having her with a sinister facial expressionThe colour scheme chosen for my house style which is:- Dark colours - Reds to signify danger and action.

• I will be showing the setting in my magazine cover- I will probably be using the same image for both so that the chosen image is more memorable.

• For my magazine I will include a free poster and a perfume sample to make the magazine seem more appealing for the female gender