MPAA Screen

Our research showed that a common convention of existing movie trailers is the inclusion of an MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) ratings screen. These are shown in several succesful movies  that relate to a similar target audience as ours: the teenage girl demographic.

Just My Luck


Legally Blonde 2


Mean Girls 2


John Tucker Must Die

Music

We are looking for a song that is fast-paced, modern pop music (to help us appeal to our target audience) that will go well with our footage. Because our trailer will be between 60 and 90 seconds long we need songs that stand out and help to promote the ideology of the film. As a result, we have chosen 'Vanity' by Chrsitina Aguilera and 'Popular' by Eric Saade.

These two songs are appropriate because they are fast-paced and modern and we think they will help us to appeal to our target audience.

Revised filming locations

Scene	Filming Location
Posh school establishing shot	Haigh Hall
Posh school corridor	Manchester Town Hall
Principal’s office	Manchester Town Hall
New school establishing shot	The Byrchall High School
New school corridor	Winstanley College corridor
School public place	Winstanley College corridor

Due to unfortunate circumstances we have had to rethink our filming locations. Croxteth Hall, which we initially planned to use as the exterior of the posh school, is undergoing renovation work and as a result has scaffolding blocking the entire facade. We have decided to replace this with Haigh Hall which is closer (and therefore easier to get to) however we do not think it will be as effective as a school exterior.

Preliminary music research

We want to feature modern pop music in our teaser trailer to appeal best to our target audience of younger teenage girls. We've spent today's lesson considering many female pop stars such as Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. We also considered male stars because these would also appeal to the audience, however we struggled to find any pop stars who sing the correct style of music.

By featuring a star on our soundtrack we are displaying synergy as the film and song mutually promote each other for additional success.

Christina Aguilera - Vanity



The Plastiscines - Bitch



Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger



Katy Perry - California Gurls



Ke$ha - Blah blah blah


Eric Saade - Popular


These are the songs we have researched. We intend to do further research and continue thinking about the impact music will have on our trailer.

Technology used during shoot 1

During our first filming session we used a Panasonic AG-HMC41e video camera along with a tripod. This enabled us to keep a steady shot during shooting and smooth pan shots. We didn't use a microphone because we intend to play music over the top of the footage.

In addition to this, we used a Sony Alpha 200 SLR to take stills images for use in our print work.

Photoshoot 1

During our first session of filming we also took some still photographs for use throughout our print work. We used a Sony Alpha 200 DSLR with the hope that it would provide us with high quality images that can be printed to large sizes. We focused on taking wide-angle landscape images so that we would then be able to superimpose our actresses at a later date.

We then used Adobe Bridge to create a contact sheet. After this we uploaded the PDF to Google Docs, making use of more modern multimedia technology. This can be viewed by clicking here.

Filming part 1

Over half term we visited a local high school to film establishing shots for our trailer. We tried to pick camera angles that gave the buildings a sense of scale- suggesting that this school was huge in comparison to the one our protagonist is originally from. We also wanted to emphasise the difference in styles between the buildings, suggesting the school was constructed over  a period of time with poor planning. We did this with the hope of creating the impression that this is a rough, working-class school which would further add to the feeling of contrast between this school and the protagonist's old one.

We originally intended to use pathetic fallacy to convey a feeling of despondency within these shots. However, due to time limnitations we were unable to wait any longer before we filmed this scene and so had no choice but to use the footage of the school on a sunny day.

In our print work we intend to use Adobe Photoshop to edit our still images. We will darken the tones, reduce the contrast and superimpose our actresses. This will hopefully further emphasise the contrast.