Inspiration for panning shot.

After analysing the Avengers trailer, we decided that we really liked the look of the establishing shot, which started the beginning of the trailer off. I personally liked the way that it established the location of the movie, and also helped the audience to see which genre the film is. The shot on the avengers was of mainly a city scape which shows that the movie will be quite fast paced. However, we are limited by being on the Island that there are no large cityscapes in our vicinity. So we decided we would do a landscape shot, and we could also draw inspiration from the opening shot of the Spiderman trailer. This is taken from high up, and is of a naturalistic landscape in the night time. However, we decided to put our own spin on this, and shoot in the day time, as our film is not as dark and sinister as Spiderman.

Storyboard Draft

This is our first draft of our trailer for Topaz Spectre. We will work on it and progress to make a second storyboard when we have more ideas.

Names

For the geeky schoolgirl we both decided that we wanted to have a pretty plain, simple and quite a popular, common name. We Google searched the most popular girls names that were around in 2000 in the UK and we looked down the list to find a name that we both liked, and we both thought suited the purpose quite well. We found that we both quite liked 'Georgia' which was number 12 on the list. Then, for the surname, we simply Google searched the most popular British surnames, and found this list, which we looked through. We both knew that we didn't want a surname which was 'too popular' as this might just seem as though we couldn't be bothered to think of a different surname than, as for example, Smith or Jones. So we decided we'd start reading through the list about halfway down, and then decided. One name that sprung up to both of us straight away was 'Murphy'. It may of been number 55 on the list, but we chose this as the final name for 'Georgia Murphy'.

We then had to decide on a name for the Superhero. We had decided before, here [LINK], that to help to make our movie have a feministic twist we would make our superhero feminine. We researched some names for our protagonist, and after googling feminine superheroes we found some of these names:

· Andromeda

· The Bionic Woman

· Blossom

· Elasti-Girl

· Halo

· Madame Xanadu

· Kim Possible

However we weren't really too keen on any of these names, as we felt they made the characters look like quite weak and non specialist. We decided that we liked the idea of naming the character with two words, and one of the first words being to describe a colour which could be linked to them. After some research we found this super heroine who is called 'Topaz'. She looks like quite a strong feminist character, and we could base the costume around the colour topaz. The definition of the word 'Topaz' on Wikipedia is as follows: Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al₂SiO₄(F,OH)₂. Topaz crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and its crystals are mostly prismatic terminated by pyramidal and other faces. Pure Topaz is mainly colourless, which works well for our character as her superpower is invisibility. There are two main other types of Topaz, which are both coloured yellow and blue. We thought that we could create a costume which has both of these colours in.

We also noted that from the names above, a few of them, such as Elasti-Girl had their superpowers written in to their names. We looked in a thesaurus for different words which could describe invisibility. This linked us to ghosts, as they are invisible, which then in turn lead us to Spectre.

This is the dictionary definition of Spectre: Spectre or spectre usually refers to a ghost or other apparition.

The route to choosing the name of the name for the Villain was quite long and winding. Because we had chosen the superpower of Mind Reading for them, our first thought was of a Magic 8 Ball. The dictionary definitions of these are: The Magic 8 Ball is a toy used for fortune-telling or seeking advice, manufactured by Mattel. The Magic 8 Ball merchandise is often linked with mind reading, because the user asks the ball a question to which they then receive an answer. We liked this original twist on the power, and started to make the costume by painting the eight on the stereotypically black cape of the villain. However this didn't look as great visually as we had expected, but we had a flash of inspiration; that the eight reminded us both of the sign for Infinity. We then changed this word slightly, which led us to create the name that is, 'The Infinitive'.

Characters

We decided to keep the plot of our trailer very simple by only including only three characters in our teaser trailer, but also with a possible couple of extras if they are needed.

Main Character: A 17 year old girl who attends high school. She is a bit of a loner and geek and doesn't really have any friends. She is 'invisible' to the world, and doesn't feel like anybody cares for her. This can be depicted in the costume that she will be wearing, which will probably be very frumpy clothes, which don't show off her figure at all, and are not in fashion. She will not be wearing much make up, if any, and she will have very unfashionable hair style.

Superhero: Will be the main character but transformed into a superhero. She will have all of the typical features of a superhero, with a cape, mask and funny costume. Her personality will be quite strong hearted; however she will be forced to use her superpowers as she won't be confident enough to stand up for herself and save the world.

Villain: This will be the normal stereotypical villain, dressed in dark colours and also with a cape and mask. We will exaggerate these elements to make him look even more 'baddy'-like which will hopefully turn the audience against him, and make them empathise with the protagonist.

Theorists.

In our coursework we will be using the theory of Vladamir Propp which would continue into the whole film, if we were to make it. His theory is that in each story, there are eight main characters, these include:

· The Hero

· The Villain

· The Donor

· The Dispatcher

· The False Hero

· The Helper

· The Princess

· The Princess' Father

His theory does not state that these all have to be separate people, for example the Helper could also be the Princess. It is quite easy to guess what all of the roles of these characters are, as it is mainly stated in the names (the hero has to save the day, the princess is what the hero has to save, the helper helps make it all possible). It is quite obvious that the two main characters in our trailer will be the Hero (the superhero) and the Villain (evil nemesis). However, further on in the story, or maybe shown in the trailer, the Hero could have someone who is there to support them on the whole journey of becoming a superhero, someone who knows what she has been through. There could also be a love interest for the superhero, who could get caught in a trap from the Villain, and they could become the Princess. The possibilities are endless for what we could create under this theory.

Gustav Freytag analysed Greek and Shakespearean plays to create a dramatic structure. His theory was that to create a successful narrative, they must contain the following in this order:

1.      Exposition or Introduction  This introduces any background information which is needed to understand what the story is, and also the problem which will need to be solved.

2.      Rising Action During this stage the original basic conflict is complicated by the integration of secondary related conflicts, which make it harder for the protagonist to reach his goal. The secondary conflict could include adversaries of a lesser impact than the original antagonist.

3.      Climax During the third act, also known as the turning point, a significant change occurs in the narrative for better or worse. Whether the story goes better or worse for the protagonist depends on which genre the narrative fits in to. For example, if the story is any kind of comedy, or maybe a romance film, the story so far would have been negative for the protagonist, and this act could show a change for them.

4.      Falling Action At this point the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist is unravels, and it is revealed who is the 'winner' out of the pair. The ending of the Falling Action is when the viewer realises that the narrative is now moving on towards the resolution or ending of the narrative.

5.      Denouement, resolution or catastrophe This is where any conflicts that have been apparent during the narrative are sorted. The main characters can then return to some sense of normality, and simply it is the unravelling of any complexities in the plot. Once again, the genre of the movie decides what the ending of the movie will mean for the protagonist. If the film is a tragedy, then the protagonist will probably end up in a worse position than at the beginning of the narrative.

Theory on superhero movies.

Why are superhero movies so popular? Well some experts think it's because they offer some sort of escapism from the 'real' world. Also because they contain "serve as a hope-inspiring figure, an image of someone who can save us all from dark and difficult times. Superhero movies promote the ideas of peace, safety and freedom. Some experts consider this message a necessary reassurance in difficult times. "serve as a hope-inspiring figure, an image of someone who can save us all from dark and difficult times. Superhero movies promote the ideas of peace, safety and freedom. Some experts consider this message a necessary reassurance in difficult times." [From this website] This makes a lot of sense to me, as I can see that people would enjoy watching superhero movies for the idea that there is something magical out there in the world, that there is hope for them to be something else from normal and boring! I think people also enjoy them because they're funny, they show a funny side to the normal action adventure films which feature people running from aliens or being chased by the police. They are also much more light hearted and easy to follow.

Analyzing Student Film (Mel)

Part of our research and planning was to deconstruct 4 different trailers from the last 40 years, and to also analyse a student film which we could relate to our own work. We searched through YouTube thoroughly trying to find a superhero trailer which was done by Media A2 Students, or at least a related Action/Adventure trailer. However, we were very unsuccessful in this. We also thought that it would not be an extremely useful way to spend our valued time, as we wouldn't be able to take much from it.