Evaluating Forms and Conventions

Trailer

Intertitles:

These match the same font / size and colour of our print products so that there is some cohesion and a set form of presentation that the audience will associate with our movie, “The Last Post”.

Will be presented on a smoky slide/screen with the green writing with the brown hue to the edges.

These are a narrative convention of the trailer form where it is important that key information is given quickly.

Example of similar intertitle from "Atonement"

Characters:

There are three main characters, although the mother does play a semi important role, as she appears to be the only person in the family who cares for the boys.

The two major, main characters are the two sons, the older one being in the army fulfilling his fathers wishes and family tradition despite not wanting to, and the younger son who stays true to his beliefs and is following his own path living his life to the full much to the dismay of his father.

The father is made out to look like an alcoholic and aggressive man who resorts to violence/drinking or shouting when things are not going his way.

The boys are around the same age, between 18 and 20, which is typical of these types of movies as war films are often based around the clash between new recruits and experienced personnel.

Similar conflict between old and young in Full Metal Jacket

Mise-en-scène

Films such as ours typically use young actors who are unknown by the audience which makes the feelings towards the characters more genuine as they have no previous recollections/feelings for the actors from previous movies that they are expecting to feel this time. Due to this the audience will be able to make unbiased predictions or attachments to the characters and will therefore be unlikely to care for deaths of characters they do not like or can't relate to.

We used props that are easily recognizable by the audience and that relate directly to this genre of the war/action.

We use replica handguns to simulate real life service pistols that the father would have had from the army when he was a part of it. We also use a range of replica weapons (airsoft) during the battle scenes, where the characters are all dressed up in dpm’s (design pattern material) that the military really use.

All clothing is chosen to directly reflect what other movies in this genre have. We use British standard issue DPM’s during the war scene reenactments and jeans and either a large black coat or hoody when we are not in uniforms.

The locations we used were key. We used a forest location to simulate a war scenario. It was an area that contained a large difference in terrain such as hills and craters in the ground but also mud and grassy areas with houses/structures built around the site. This made the filming seem like it was taken in a real war scenario rather than a mock up one.

Similar location and props in Generation Kill

The next location we used was a family home, which was meant to be the boys and their parent’s home. We used locations inside the house like the living room/bedrooms and the kitchen for the scene where the father is made to look like an alcoholic.

One major prop that we used was a photo frame that contained a picture of the mother the father and the two boys all happy in the same place, this is significant as throughout the whole trailer we only see this happen once at the dining room table but the family is not happy at this point. Towards the middle of the trailer the picture is broken by the younger brother, which signifies that the family has broken just as the glass and the frame from the picture has smashed.

Camera work:

We used a lot of different camera angles and movements throughout the whole trailer to provide different effects and to stress different emotions when they need to be focused on.

We use a large amount of close-ups for shots such as when the brothers are upset and we needed to show and stress exactly how emotional the scene is. We also used close-ups to show the significance of certain props such as the photo frame or the guns.

We used two shot to show the relationships between two characters such as the mother and the father or between the two brothers. The two shot allowed us to show the emotions as well as the body language of the characters as the two shot generally is either a mid shot or just a full body shot.

Close up - Saving Private Ryan

We use over-the-shoulder shots for significant conversations that require the audience to pay attention to the words as well as the characters emotions when they are saying it.

Camera work does not always reflect the genre it is portraying (unless it is horror with the shaky handheld camera shots) so the choice of shots can be very varied as the audience is not really meant to be aware of the choice of shots that they are seeing but rather paying attention to the content they are seeing.

Editing:

When making a trailer we can’t use every shot we filmed, as the trailer would end up being as long as the full movie. We had to use a technique called ellipsis that cuts out all unnecessary shots that the audience can guess what happens. For example between some one waking up and them being dressed you do not need to film them getting dressed as the audience should be able to figure it out.

We used L-cuts so that we could show as many shots as we can but keep the voice from the previous shot going so we still have context. The second shot still relates to the first.

We also used montage editing, which means that we used a series of short and fast shots in sequence to build up tension to a pinnacle scene. In this case they contained shots from the military training as well as emotional scenes between the families or even between the younger brother and his best friend.

Sound:

The main sound throughout the whole trailer is non-diegetic music, which only the audience can hear. We tried to make the music reflect the emotion or tension happening in the shots seen by the audience. This music tells the audience how they should feel and also tells them when something is about to happen, such as music that gets faster and louder when montage editing is happening, telling the audience something big is about to happen.

The dialogue in our trailer was chosen specifically to tell the audience what is happening in our story whether it’s the brothers discussing war or their father or the discussions between the mother and the father on their sons.

We will also have L cuts (dialogue from elsewhere in the film running under silent images) that is essential as it brings context to the shots that are being shown when the characters aren’t speaking. This is essential as without it our plot is complex.

The Poster

The poster displays two main images. One is the main image, which shows a picture of the two brothers, arguably the main characters in this movie. One of them is in army uniform while the other is not. They are both looking in different directions and faced in different ways, which almost shows how opposite their lives are. This hopefully conveys both the war genre and the emotional drama content of our film. This grouping of the main characters is common in war posters:

At the bottom of the poster is almost a banner of three images. On the left is the older brother who is in army uniform facing left. On the right is an image of the younger brother on the phone facing the other way. While in the middle of the two brothers there is a picture of the brother’s father looking straight between them at the viewer. This shows how the father is in the center of all the problems but also that he is the reason the brothers are split up and lead different lives.

We have the name of the film at the top of the poster not covering any of the image to show the importance of the characters and the title itself as they each are shown fully and not obscured by each other.

The poster includes a large text box at the bottom crediting all the actors as well as film crew and producers which is really only there to make the audience reassured that this is a professional movie - it is a feature of the film poster form rather than of genre.

We also have a general release date on the poster (like summer 2013 etc.) - again an important formal feature.

Magazine cover:

The magazine cover contains two main images that are faded together and have a smoke effect placed over them to make the image seem seamless. On top is the image of the father and the two brothers with the older brother and the younger brother being quite close together with the younger brother almost separated from the two displaying the relationship they have in the movie itself.

The image underneath this is a tower in the forest from the military training shots. The bottom of the top image and the top of the bottom image are faded together and blurred while a smoke effect is placed at the bottom of the magazine cover and runs to just under the faces of the actors making the images seem like they are one.

This careful attention to the main image was done to make sure the genre of the main film featured is clear to the audience. We have given enough clues to the military theme and also to the family drama to make this clear at a glance.

However, we did notice that films of this kind are not often the main feature for film magazines (no Empire or Total Film cover for Atonement or The Hurt Locker, for example) so we are breaking conventions of genre choice for the magazine company here.

The magazine includes the magazines name as well as the price, barcode and issue number. These are essential to magazines and have to be present - key layout features and again makes the magazine cover form clear.

The magazine includes text over the front either side of the image to highlight special features in the magazine as well as offers - this is in the kind of language often used for teaser text which tends to be exaggerated and to emphasise exclusivity and new material.

Towards the bottom of the magazine cover we have a bar that includes three pictures of other movies that feature in this movie. With their titles to show the viewer what to expect. This is because the magazine needs to show it has a variety of content.

Despite our unusual choice of film, we have fulfilled a lot of magazine layout conventions.