Planning

This section contains the planning work I produced with my group, in order for us to be organised and systematic when constructing our work. This is the initial planning document for our teaser trailer we created which we later developed upon:

Planning notes for A2 coursework
Brief: Trailer
Genre: Murder mystery/Drama/Thriller
Storyline: Group of strangers are at an event when mysterious murders start to happen. The film develops to make the audience guess who the murderer is. The murderer is then revealed at the end of the film.
Things to avoid: No dialogue, too many titles, no film title, unconvincing font, filming in school, narrative not clear, bad mise-en-scene
Important: Variety of locations, voice over helpful, good music choice to establish genre, camera shot variety

Next we decided upon a more detailed description of the plot of the film we were going to promote so that we could then start deciding what sort of shots we wanted to include:

Treatment
The story begins when each of the 8 main characters receives an invite to a prestigious charity benefit ball, a great place for them to boost their social status and flaunt their wealth. The characters meet when they are seated around the same table and enjoy their evening, drinking, eating and socialising. Their table is the made up of some of the most wealthy and influential upper class names in Shrigley. Even though they have never met before, they all have one thing that connects them; their killer, and they don’t even know it yet. The evening seems to be a success until one of the female VIPs disappears, to be found dead in the fountain. The panic stricken guests are all desperate to leave the party straight away but they are all now suspects in the middle of a murder investigation, and even if it were possible they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the crime scene. They are trapped in the isolation of the Grand Shrigley Hall, in the middle of nowhere unable to contact the outside world until the crime is solved. Everyone has their own opinions on who the murder is, however whether their suspicions are right or wrong, they all end up finding themselves in the hands on the murder who is still in their midst. The story develops as the characters desperately fight for survival, where anyone around them could be the killer; but as the film continues the characters continue to be killed, one by one. As the guest numbers decrease, the fear and determination of the victims, like sitting ducks, increases. They try to outsmart the mysterious murderer by forming alliances, only to find themselves in deeper peril, as this just angers the murder. The characters continue to be killed, so the inspectors finds he has less and less suspects, the investigation is becoming fatal to anyone in the hall. So the inspector needs to be cunning, smart and quick to find the murder before the murder finds him, or any more guests. This is difficult as there are very few clues. The inspector is not quick enough, all the characters are killed.The most sickening homicide in centuries is yet to be solved, when a twist gives the clue the inspector needs, the character who was shot is still alive, he faked his own death to cover his tracks so he would not be a suspect. The murder denies his involvement, while the inspector struggles to understand any possible motive, but it finally comes together. The killers motive is revealed, each character has affected his life badly in some way.

Storyboarding
The next step in planning the production of our trailer was drawing the storyboard for our teaser trailer; we initially came up with these 20 shots when brainstorming:



The final trailer is different to this initial plan because during the editing stage we continued to make decisions on what we wanted to include once we had tried everything out.

Titles & Voice Over
Once we had decided roughly what kind of shots we wanted to include in our trailer we went on to plan the titles and voice over. Here are the documents in which we planned the script for our, titles and voice over we printed of the document for the voiceover to give to the actor so it was clear what we wanted them to say:
Titles
Names of famous actors to act as USP:
- Kate Winslet
- Thandie Newton
- Nicole Kidman
These will appear either before, after or corresponding with the actor on screen.
To make the trailer more interesting and the film more attractive to the target audience:
- Based on True Events
This will appear towards the start of the trailer to create a mysterious, spooky atmosphere that will carry on throughout the trailer.
To inform the audience of the name of the film, so they remember it and know it is a film available to watch:
- Nineteen Fitfy Four
This title will appear at the end of the trailer so that it is the last thing to stick in the audiences mind. We decided to use a font that connoted the time period and looked as if it was handwritten, in the style of a 1950's invitation, this is a screen grab of the font we used:














Voiceover
We want the voice over to read like an invitation to stay at the hotel that would have been recieved by all of the guests:
- This winter
- You are cordially invited to Shrigley Manor
- You are a select few
- Who have shown extraordinary acheivements this year
- We hope to see you there
- For a night you will never forget
- Nineteen Fifty Four
- Coming soon

List of Actors
After we decided which shots we were going to include we had to decide who was going to appear in our trailer and what their roles would be within the trailer. This is the document we produced when organising the actors:
Actors & Key Roles
Harriet Lamptey: act frightened, the person dead in the fountain, convey the idea that people are getting killed.





Bronte Barbe: create enigma by being the mysterious character who gives away little bits of the storyline. Most of the dialogue shots. Pose as Kate Winslet




Sophie Adshead: Look like a victim throughout, convey the idea that people are trying to escape





Emma Burgess: Convey the idea of guests at hotel, show the terror through scream






Tom Martin: Create the idea of tension between the characters through gossip/argument/fight scenes etc





Ryan Lloyd: Minimal appearance to create enigma but presence known







Planning Location
We decided to set our film trailer at Shrigley Hall Hotel in Cheshire because we had been there before and new it would establish the time period of the 1950's. We went on the website and found this information:
"Shrigley Hall estate dates back over five centuries and was originally home to the Downes family until it was sold to William Turner, high sheriff of Cheshire in 1821. Mr Turner commisioned Thomas Emmet to design the Hall, which was completed in 1925. Since then the house has been painstakingly restored and sympathetically developed into a country house hotel, retaining its character, elegance and grandeur" - http://www.barcelo-hotels.co.uk/hotels/northern-england/barcelo-shrigley-hall-hotel-cheshire/weddings/
We knew that the building was standing in the 1950's and so would help create perfect mise-en-scene as the location for our film trailer. Here are some images we took of the location when researching into it:

Permission
The next thing we had to do was get permission from the hotel manager so that we could film at Shrigley Hall. Leonie Williamson works at Shrigley and so organised with the manager through emails when and where we could film.

Shot List
Before we went each filming shoot, we wrote a list of the shots we aimed to complete on that shoot. Here is the shot list for our first filming shoot:

Shot number/Location/Actors
1.Establishing shot of Shrigley Hall - No actors
2.Interior shot of mystery person holding invite - No actors
3.Interior shot of people entering down the grand staircase - All actors
4.Two people gossiping at the bottom of the staircase - Tom Martin Ryan Lloyd
5.Someone wandering around on their own - Sophie Adshead
6.Shot of fountain with dead person in - Harriet Lamptey
7.We need to get out of here - Bronte and Harriet
8.Exterior shot of grass, with someone getting dragged away - Sophie Adshead
9.Someone running outside - Bronte
10.Exterior shot of fountain - No actors
11.Someone kissing - Tom Martin and Emma Burgess
12.People running-POV shot - Tom Martin and Harriet Lamptey
13.Argument at the lake - Tom Martin and Emma Burgess
14.Shot from outside window of someone getting dragged away - Sophie Adshead
15.Someone all scruffy/messy saying they know who the killer is - Emma Burgess
16.Shot of behind killer meeting someone, and then killing them - Killer
17.Killer dropping pill in a drink - No actors
18.Over the shoulder shot of killer peeking through the door - Tom Martin Ryan Lloyd 19.Someone running through the woods tripping over branches - Sophie Adshead
20.Someone else running through woods - Tom Martin

Risk Assesments
We had to carry out risk assessments at each new site we were filming at. This was fairly straighforward as all we needed to do was keep within the health and safety regulations of the hotel, for example, not setting the camera up where it could be blocking a fire exit etc.