Drafting and Planning: Storyboards

I attempted to make a storyboard to show how some of the scenes would be shot for my trailer. But, though I used to be good at drawing, I don't take pleasure in drawing anything these days unfortunately, so found this a rather laborious task.

But here's what I did draw of my storyboard:

I can't draw out my ideas properly from my head, I much prefer to write them down, and use existing shots from films/trailers/TV I already know of to take inspiration from.

I guess a shot list is what fits me best, and I like to just have my camera and 'wing it' on the day of filming sometimes; yes there'd be a plan, but one thing I've learnt is that you get some of our best ideas from experimentation and just going for it!

EXTRA IDEA:
Perhaps, at the start of the 7 Deadly Sin forest scene, the make up is first all tidy and perfect, then the make-up, hair and costumes gets all ruined and tattered the more and more mad they get!

Drafting and Planning/Research Into Similar Products: Mr Darling/Captain Hook and Main Male/Lust

I've been considering the idea Stephen had when he said:

So I immediately thought of Peter Pan (as usual) and how Mr Darling and Captain Hook are both played by Jason Isaacs! I love how they're both the same (beautiful) actor but how each character looks so different.

And since I want to try something new, I've decided to show the contrasts between Mr Darling and Captain Hook through the medium of GIFs!

     Mr Darling knocks back a drink:

Captain Hook treats himself to a drink:

Mr Darling sings at the piano:

Captain Hook sings at piano:

I love his singing voice... what if lullaby/ominous singing was a major part of the trailer?

Mr 'finger waggle' Darling:

Captain 'please don't jab me' Hook:

Mr Darling gives Wendy a firm talking to:

                                         Captain Hook shows... some more authority:

...I could imagine 'Lust' in some shots like this with Senara

ouch... 

Mr Darling reunites with his children:

Such a beautiful, emotional moment...

Captain Hook 'comforts' Wendy:

I wonder if 'Lust' should be the MAJOR sin character with equal 'air time' to Senara, (since he's Senara's biggest weakness) like how Hook is with Wendy...

I loved exploring the different contrasts between Mr Darling and Hook; so much of the time, Mr Darling lacks courage in social things but has the love of his family to be around, and pursues to better himself for the family, whereas Captain Hook is the lonely 'sexual aggressor'. Since her father is the only man Wendy knows in her life, Captain Hook looks like him. The idea of a 'husband' scares Wendy, and this fear is personified through Captain Hook; though she does warm to him at times because his understanding of 'feelings', and he is rather exciting! Hook is a lonely, isolated, brooding character, but is seen as 'powerful' despite his loneliness, which contrasts well to his 'alter ego' Mr Darling.

I love how different Mr Darling and Captain Hook look, yet you obviously see their similarities. Jason Isaacs' even had their voices sound different; Mr Darling as an almost 'timid', harmless, stiff-upper-lip gentleman, and Hook as a sexy, flamboyant, manipulative but sorrowful man with his sensual, growling tones. Isaacs said in an interview once 'When I act, I start with the voice' of the character to develop them. And I'd like to replicate that if I could with 'The Husband' in my trailer and 'Lust'.
And in terms of 'The Husband's name... I wonder if it'd be effective if he doesn't even have a name. Well, if this was a real movie, he WOULD have a name. but in the trailer, it'd give a real air of mystery to him if she only referred to him as, 'my husband' or 'my love(r)' instead.
But I'll brainstorm some name ideas anyway. I'd probably end up basing his name on the (real life) actor I imagine him as best; like Jason Isaacs or Richard Armitage, or characters like Lucius Malfoy or Guy of Gisborne... Life of a fangirl, eh?

EDIT:

I've written some minor details which comes in this future blog post here:

http://daniellepalmera2media.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/organisation-few-minor-changes.html

It's not too much of a change; instead the ideas have developed from Male/Lust being the same person, either Senara/Lust is the same person instead or the inspiration of multi-rolling could be applied to the fact that Senara's both a human and a Succubus.

Organisation/Research Into Target Audience: Plot line is narrowed down even more...

Organisation...
...The Plot

A succubus (female demon who has sex with men to kill them/give them illness) called Senara discover that 'love' exists in the human world, and realises how empty and harmful her succubi ways are to humans and herself.

She's banished from the demon world since she grows consciousness of what shes doing and they dont want her influencing the other demons. She's sentenced to live on earth as the immortal being she is. She can still disguise as a human as she'd usually do, but she's guaranteed to fall in love (potentially multiple times) and feel grief with every time they die (whether it be because of HER having sex with them, or from murder or natural causes) 

Senara doesnt care since she wants to be human (she'd rather live the dream of finally FEELING something rather than living in the dark, ignorant, emptiness she had in the demon world)

She goes to the human world, living a life (I don’t know whether it’s the matter of a few years or decades/hundreds of years, since she is still immortal... Or should she turn mortal? I’m not sure) learning about herself, others and doing human things, but trying to avoid ‘succumbing to what feels natural’ to her kind.

But she soon finds 'THE ONE'.... She's not a naive little girl; in her demon life, she experienced the worst of things, and she had many 'frogs' during her early 'earthly' life. But she finally found her equivalent of the 'prince'.

He's a troubled soul as well, so he cannot judge her dark past.

I think they get married, and they DO have sex. I'd think he knows what she is... I don’t know whether they risk having sex because he's ill and dying anyway and thinks 'I'd rather die from your love rather than from a painful, merciless illness' (though that'd be too much like 'Fault in Our Stars'), or if they done it from closed minded lust. But either way, she wakes up the next morning and he dies.

From then on, she falls into madness... Big Part In Trailer

You’ll see what goes on in her mind; you see a forest of mad creatures (the 7 deadly sins) running around, throwing her around acting mad like a circus act, treating her as a puppet and freak.

She's torn between vice and virtue and realises that’s what it is to be human. She goes on a rampage of falling into each sin, out of self-hatred and hatred for everything. Those in her life betray her, they now call her a murderer and a slut etc. 
But since she's a demon and connected to the spirit world, in her lowest moment, she meets her husband again (maybe in a near death experience). She begs forgiveness for her wrong-doing and he embraces her, taking the life from her body and she returns to him as a good spirit herself (which is a big deal for her, considering she's a succubus)

...

Thats the plot in a very blunt nutshell. In the trailer though, if I'm short of male actors, perhaps you don't SEE her husband/lover, since he's too special to be seen by the audience. Either, you just HEAR him/see silhouettes, OR the story is based on AFTER she killed him. Or the trailer is at least.
And, since this is a trailer, only some of this content is achievable/appropriate to film, and I'll work that out in the story-boarding process.


EDIT
Research Into Target Audience...
...Feedback on Main Male and Lust being the same actor

I had a discussion with Stephen about the plot line of the trailer (I shown him this very post) about not only what character he'd want to be, but about the possibility of the main male character being the sin of Lust in the trailer too (since I'm rather short on actors). Here's some of his thoughts on the trailer and this specific idea.

  

I'm going to really act on what he said, I'll write a separate post on his idea of making sure the look of the male lead and 'Lust' looks different, since I've got some vivid inspiration for it!







I've also asked a friend called James about my trailer idea, and he also seems so very supportive on the idea. Here's the conversation we had;

 He's such a charmer :)

 I can just feel how much better and more developed and in depth my trailer idea is becoming; I know it's just a trailer for coursework, but to me, it's so much more than that.

Research Into Similar Products: How trailers have improved

Since I've become a big fan of the 2003 Peter Pan film, I decided to check out the trailer of it, but the trailer doesn't do the film justice to be honest.

Peter Pan 2003 Trailer:

I found the trailer was a bit to 'Americanised' and cheesey, because of the narration and choppy editing. But you DO get a sense of the story. I just don't think the trailer was a very good representation of the film. Alike this trailer:


The Fountain 2006 Trailer:

This is a beautiful movie which makes you question many things at the end of it, but as many Youtubers said, it's not a very good representation of the actual film and focuses more on the action rather than what's actually important in it; the relationship between the two protagonists.


[put two images of Youtube comments here later]


 But especially these days, film-makers and editors have learnt from their mistakes and trailers have really improved and look amazing.

For example, the teaser trailer of the new Jungle Book film (analysed in greater depth in this post) is slick, with many 'fade to black' moments to add more drama and variation in pace.

And for more trailer analysis, check out this post.

Organisation: Actors

Out of the characters so far that I know of, here're the actors who've agreed to play each character:

Senara:

Myself

7 Deadly Sins:

Pride: Megan

Gluttony: Paige

Wrath: Shea

Sloth: Luke

Greed: Angel

Lust: Senara is Lust

Envy: Shannen

Main male lead: Stephen

Other male characters (?): Anyone I could get my hands on, including the ones playing as the other sins.

I'VE FINALLY GOT MY FULL CAST LIST!!!

Research Into Similar Products: 'The Jungle Book' Live Action 2016 Teaser Trailer

I'll look at some more trailers, but what made me do this post was that I just found the trailer for the upcoming Live Action version of The Jungle Book! And I instantly recognised Scarlett Johansson's voice in the narration (I love her so much)! And I'm so inspired by this little teaser trailer!

I adore the multiple establishing shots in the beginning as Scarlett narrates in character. You almost forget it's a teaser; so much is crammed in into just 1:55!

Just look at these establishing shots! Beautiful; I could REALLY take inspiration from these angles when it comes to the 'forest' part in my trailer! I love especially the final one with Mowgli (the boy) deep in the forest, almost being stalked on by the camera. I love the change of dark establishing shots to the brighter hues of action sequences with the other animals. 

The caption, 'NEXT SPRING', the look of the captions are always within the theme of the look of the film as well as the house style; so I need to keep in mind this when making the captions for my trailer.

And I love the climax it gave when building up to the famous 'if you trust in me' line which Kaa, the snake says. Scarlett suits Kaa so well and I love the twist of the snake having a female voice instead.

And a beautiful Title caption fully in line with the house style of the film, and keeping the classic Jungle Book style from the original Disney version. I'm so excited to see this film!

And look at this final shot! So cute, Baloo carrying Mowgli on his belly, and the colours are so much more saturated and vibrant than from the first few shots! 

What I also adore about this trailer is the narration from Scarlett Johansson:

Kaa: 

Are you alone out here?
What are you doing so deep in the jungle?
Don't you know what you are?

I know what you are...

I know where you came from...

Poor, sweet little goat(?)...

I'll keep you closssse...

Let go of your fear now...

And trusssst in me...

The dialogue isn't snippets of loads of separate parts of the film (the actual shots do that job) but are from a consistent scene with the snake. Maybe I could, rather than throw in quotes from multiple parts of the trailer, I could use dialogue from one character from the one scene. But I need to keep in mind this is a teaser, so has enough time for a bit of dialogue. With a theatrical, you need more content to show, including many quotes if you have enough time to fill. 

And the music and animal roars between her narration really sets the tone and action too. When the dialogue is done, it's thirty odd seconds of dramatic music until he title is shown, then the cute whistling and humming from Baloo. 

 I'll most certainly take inspiration from this little teaser trailer, while I'm waiting in anticipation for the film to come out! :)

Research Into Target Audience: Their thoughts on the plotline

I've asked 9 of my friends (in the age range of 16-20) about the plot of my trailer.

Two of the most notable responses were from my friends Angel and Millie. Who both collectively said:

Angel: Can't she use a condom?
Millie: Am I reading 4 plot-lines at once?
Both: Isn't she human now that she's in the human world????? So wouldn't she have a womb to bare a child?
Angel: She should have sex with anyone she wants, forget this guy! Just kill him anyway and have fun!
Both: FEMINISM.
Millie: You're looking too much into it!

And all of a sudden I'm infuriated by them.

Pocket watch: Their response         Hook: Me

But in my OWN defence, neither of them read the plot properly. So their opinion is only half taken into account.

I'll keep their silly questions in mind, all audience research is valuable (arguably).

Anyway, the REAL audience research was about which plot-line to base the story on:

Either:

She kills her husband but re-unites with him in the spirit world (she becomes a good spirit rather than a demon when SHE moves on because of the love she gained for him)

or

She cheats on him (because she needed to vent her succubus lust on someone but didnt want to risk HIS life!) but they get back together and both die making love eventually (gosh too much death everywhere!)

Here's specifically what each person said:

Those who like the first idea:

                                                                                 Those who like the second idea:

 

she also said "It's a twist between real life drama and fantasy!"

Those who like the new combined idea (only just researched this one so not many responded):

I think I'll settle on the first plot-line idea of Senara killing her lover/husband and he dies the night they make love; it's more tragic that way, and makes the journey of 'rebirth' she has greater impact and beauty, especially when she dies and returns to him in the next life. 
If I settle on the 'her husband/lover has an illness' thing, it could be too much like 'Fault in Our Stars' which would be annoying; except the fact Senara sped his death up and gets depressed from it. But I'll think a little further on that one. But I'm definitely settling on plot-line number one now! 

Maybe, since HE isnt the most morally clean person either, he was in bad trouble, or was gonna get killed by someone else, or even executed in some way. Or is in trouble in some way and is running from punishment. He has Senara instead set him 'free' by killing him. But that seems so much colder and more of a business thing. Or, maybe she just thought she was human, now she's in the human world, but found out her succubus deadliness still applies and he never knew... Its a tricky one really. I still need to think on it. But I do want to follow this story path.