Script

When scripting the trailer, we concluded that to try to script every line of dialogue and action would be very difficult to do, given that a trailer does not have a sequential pattern of events, as well as being pretty useless considering that we were likely to change our minds during or after filming a scene, and that we couldn’t account for how long a scene would last in practice, we decided that the smartest thing to do would be to script the scenes that would be most complex and important to the plot, and leave the rest up to our creativity on the day of filming.

The script itself may be viewed in it's entirety by clicking the image on the left.

Locations

When it came to location planning we knew we wanted to use a vast selection of shots, indoor and outdoor, that used a mostly urban look to fit with the idea of street justice that the characters would be aspiring. As such we tried to rule out any area that looked to rural or upper class.

Location Shots Taken Using Google Street View

These shots represent a selection of the types of locations we went for, getting a blend of run down busy areas and empty atmospheric locales.



Music

Our Research on trailers clearly points to the music being an essential part of the trailer, not only does it tie all of the separated scenes together, it also helps to influence the audience into the pace and ‘feel’ of the trailer.  We have decided to try and obtain permission to use the music of the British hard rock band “the black spiders” their music being very heavy and upbeat and will increase the sense of action within our trailer, their small band status will make it easier to obtaining permission as we are directly able to contact their manager, it will also add to the idea of us producing an Independent film. Josh, as musical director, handled contacting the band: we took screenshots of the correspondence.

Complete Corrospondance

The Song we used was their song “Stay Down” after obtaining permission we went and looked at their music video for the song. we made sure to keep this in mind when it came to filming and editing, looking at what pacing matched what parts of the film.

Props List & Costume

Props

Posters: The heroes put these up around the area, including a few places for comic affect

Molotov: Lit by one of the villains, displays a sense of danger for the heroes and shows that they are in conflict with actual gangsters and killers.

Road Map & hotel pieces: Used as part of a scene regarding plot and forms part of the DIY style of organization that the heroes have.

Lager and Tortilla Chips: Part of the background in the planning scene, making the characters seem more real.

Camera: The characters use this for surveillance on the local gang.

Laptop: Used to research crimes and vigilantism, a plot point that spurs the motivation to fight crime.

Cigarette: The cigarette carries the classic connotations of a bad character. As such the antagonists use these so the audience has recognition of them.

Mobile Phones: The main method of communication in the trailer, used by both heroes and villains and brings 21st century technology into the trailer.

‘Mysterious Package’: The antagonists are seen exchanging this on the street, hinting at their nefarious ways without being obvious that they are up to no good.

Costume

The main characters often wear different variations of black outfits to conceal themselves, and are an element of stealth; a comic occurrence is the fact that they wear this even in the day time where they are brightly lit and therefore easily visible. The black also forms a kind of uniform, hinting at the superhero origins, though moving towards a more realistic take on costumes.

The characters also wear a disguise in one scene, though purposefully made obvious that they stand out for comic affect.

Adversely, the antagonists wear different types of sports clothing, so that they represent the typical “chav” stereotype that the audience will understand, especially given youth crime is normally associated with this subculture.

We also based the antagonists off of the antagonists in Harry Brown, this is especially shown through their costume.

Plot & Characters

Plot

Characters

Much of the plot, including the gags in the trailer, comes from the interaction between the two characters, so we have written them specifically to play off of each other. Creating a typical Laurel and Hardy situation, though we decided to mix up who plays the straight man and who plays the fool so as to split opinion on who was the funny one.

James/"Justice"

James has had a strong sense of morality since his upbringing, but until recently, never had the drive to do anything about it. This all changed when, after seeing enough crime in his neighbourhood, became convinced that it was his destiny to stop crime and restore justice to the world. He has a no nonsense attitude and, because of his new calling in life, has very little time to crack jokes, although in the company of his friend may rarely find himself returning to his laid back slacker ways.

Rob/"Owl Eyes"/"Avenging Rock Star Love Eagle"

Rob has been a slacker most of his life, and has been proud to say so for just as long, he is not overly enthusiastic about his new role of crime fighter, especially as he openly acknowledges his lack of any fighting ability or ambition to help people. Despite this, he genuinely cares for his friend and tags along in more of a babysitter role, knowing that he cannot do it alone, Rob is constantly sarcastic and makes fun of James’ attempts at vigilantism.

Planning

With our research complete, we have somewhat of an idea of where to go with our production, however now we will need to take what we have learned and use it to craft our own trailer, using their conventions but also introducing our own ideas to keep the film interesting and unique. We need to design a firm plot and characters for the film and pick locations, props, costume and create a script. We must also handle organization of filming. As well as design and finally create our poster and magazine cover.

We Created a brief mind map of where we wanted to go with our trailer to help us structure the rest of the planning, however from there we are going to use our own initiative so as not to let the project get too stale.

Audience Research

Obviously a trailer is only good if it appeals to its audience, as such we need to take into consideration what our audience look for when watching trailers, what they find important, and what they find negligible. we decided a survey would be the most accurate way to gauge our audiences preferences, so we created our own and posted it online using SurveyMonkey.Com