Mood Board for Joe

This is my mood board for Joe. It shows the various recognisable elements and symbols that the story will directly use. In the center is the gravestone, representing the death that whole story will revolve around.

Fallout

Director: Ian Rickson
Writer: Roy Williams
Cast: Aml Ameen, Noma Dumezweni, Clint Dyer
Released: 3rd July 2008

Even though Fallout was a feature length crime drama shown on Channel 4 it still has elements that I can take as inspiration for Joe.

Down Terrace

Film Title: Down Terrace
Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Written by: Robin Hill, Ben Wheatley

Starring: Robert Hill, Robin Hill,

Down Terrace is an independently made film directed by Ben Wheatley and written by Ben wheatley and Robin Hill. It follows the story of a 2 Brighton based father and son 'gangsters' who recently have been released from prison. They are trying to figure out who it was that had been talking to the police to turn them in while watching out for traitors in their circle of friends and colleagues. As they become obsessed with who to trust they begin to kill each other around them wihout anyone elses knowledge. The film ends with the protaginist Karl (Robin Hill) killing his own parents as he believes they are the ones who are talking to the police after everyone around him has been murdered.
This film is a vital piece of inspirational media for young film makers. It was made on a comparatively tiny budget of £8000 that was brought together by the writers Robin Hill and Ben Wheatley. Their major filming location was the inside of Robin's parents home in Brighton with some scenes shot in the surrounding area. It's hugely basic with a focus on story and dialogue rather than action scenes.

Locations for 'Joe'

Joe isn't a film that will benefit from a plot that travels to various locations. It's an exploration of the turmoil and emotional strain of the characters and therefore the back drop only serves as a way of increasing the realism. We have narrowed the locations we will need to a few easy to access ones.

The streets

The streets will be an integral location throughout the film. Our film is dealing with a cast of teenagers who lives in a quiet town. With the lack of things there is to do in quiet towns most young people will take to the streets looking for something to entertain themselves with. The streets will be where the story begins with Joe's death, where the characters try to seek solace and where the story runs its conclusion.

Here is a prelimenary shot of the scene of Joe's death; an alley on the same estate that most of the characters will live on. There's no lighting down here so a tense mise can be created at night time. I plan for the film to begin here and for the film to end here.

As with all youth there needs to be a place for them to collect and socialise together. Hastings has many places where these types of locations can be used effectively. For instance this play area:

William Parker Sports College

Our own school William Parker Sports College will serve as the location of the school that the teenagers all attend.

Character profiles for 'Joe'

Joe

As a character Joe never directly appears in the film. It's the scenario surrounding his death that is crucial to the plot of the film. As a person he is popular amongst his peers in college with good job prospects with his grades and good sporting ability. He was someone everyone in the college knew and got on with.

Danny

Danny is Joe's best friend. They play sports together and go to every event they can together. Some might say that Joe's death hit Danny harder than anyone else, even Lucy. He would be very similar to Joe in personality and attributes. However what is important about Danny is how he copes with Joe's death considering his personality. He's not an aggressive character but he feels vengful. He wants the perpertrators to suffer for what they did to Joe but he doesn't know how to make it happen.

Lucy

Lucy was Joe's girlfriend and was completely infactuated by him when he was alive. She is a very popular attractive girl who feels great pain over the loss of her Joe. However she is a very rational charcter and believes just fighting with the perpertrators will cause more fighting. Her biggest desire throughout the film is just to move foward with her life and forget the catastrophe that has changed it so dramatically. To do so she seeks comfort

Trailer Draft for 'Joe'

Here is a preliminary draft for the trailer of 'Joe'. In our trailer we want to portray the emotional instability of each of the characters as they try to cope with the loss of their friend or in Anuar's case the guilt that he feels. As it develops I want an audience to see that Lucy is trying to regain a sense of perspective in her life and trying to develop as a teenage girl again where as in contrast Danny is desperately trying to seek justice for the murder of his closest friend. With Anuar the trailer will show his paranoia as he tries to cope with knowing he participated in the murder of an innocent person. It's aim is to make an audience feel interested in the stories leading up to the state they are in within the trailer.

A trailer I feel is good to draw inspiration from is the trailer of Shane Meadow's This is england '86. Being in the style of independent film it follows the conventions that we want to follow. It's especially helpful from the 42nd second when the sinister moments for the characters begin to be drawn in. It shows mid close up shots of the characters argueing, angry and crying. It becomes intimate with their emotions drawing us into a sense of peril that they are experiencing.

• Shot 1 - Danny in tears - Fade to black - 3 seconds
  


• Shot 2 - Lucy in tears - Fade to black - 3 seconds
  


• Shot 3 - Anuar in tears - Fade to black - 3 seconds
  


• Shot 4 - News report voice over 'a another young boy has been stabbed in another random street attack' while black - Piano music begins to play
  


• Shot 5 - Lucy talking to Danny "Danny we loved him both but we got to move on"
  


• Shot 6 - Danny punching the wheel of his car in a fit of rage
  


• Shot 7 - Anuar walking down a street, hood up, checking over shoulder, jumpy at sirens.
  


• Shot 8 - Lucy dressed up for a night out. Laughing with gal pals.

Trailers

A film trailer is a vitally important aspect of any film. It is one of the few opportunities a production team get to sell the unique points about their film in a short length of time. This means that the process of making a trailer has to be careful and thoughtful. It needs to take vital components from the plot that will condense the story into a 2 and a hlaf minute segment.

Trailers will follow a certain amount of conventions regardless of their genre, style or target audience because everyone responds to the same sale techniques. However eventually these conventions will become distorted, depending on the aspect of the film, as a trailer develops into a piece of media fit for general release.

Preliminary movie ideas

This section of the blog will hopefully show the journey that was made in deciding the film that will be made in our group.

Our group wanted to make a film that was different to genres and concepts used typically in modern blockbuster film making. We carefully analysed a number of trailers from coursework and realised that the general genre that they experimented with was horror with a focus on the sub genre of teen slasher. Although each of the trailers were aesthetically pleasing to watch, with particular emphasis on tension which was clear with some thrilling moments, we decided not to use them as inspiration. This is because we felt that horror films are not individually memorable or successful. They seem to foolow in each others footsteps taking the same age old concepts of a mentally unstable individual taking the lives of young innocent teenagers in ever increasing sick twisted ways. It becomes obvious what is going to happen in these films because of the narrative they follow. A horror franchise that is easily recognisible is the SAW series. It follows an engineer who aims to change peoples wasteful attitudes to life due to his life being cut short in a losing battle with cancer. The original was a thrilling, shocking picture that left audiences reeling at it's original plot concept; 2 men chained up and trapped in a bathroom with no hope of escape unless they dismember their own feet with a hack saw. The film finished with a memorable twist which topped off the films appeal well. However it's appeal diminished when 6 sequels were made. They slowly began to lose focus on meaningful plot and focused more on twisted gore in unrealistic environments. In a sense it made a parody of itself with no effort put into the clever narrative and more effort put into creating the most bizzare and brutal ways of killing people.



Our group particularly enjoys the concept of cult films. We wanted to produce a picture that drew on the idea of 2 men in an undesirable, horribly average work place that, due to extraordinary circumstances, becomes completely ridiculous. Films have toyed with this narrative and have become hugely successful in the past. One of my personal favourites is the series of films called the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy. These 3 films are created by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright and feature Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in starring roles.

The third genre we wanted to explore was drama. Specifically drama based within Britain following difficult working class conditions that give an audience some form of perspective on lesser off people than themselves. One director that inspiration can be drawn from is Shane Meadows. He makes films following the stories of people with nothing extraordinary happening in their lives in terms of the bigger picture of the world

WORKING TITLE - Call the Wardens

Plot - The story follows 2 protaginists who are traffic wardens; Frankie Daubney and William Darling. Frankie is an experienced warden at around the age of 30 and a raging alcoholic. His approach to offenders and the system can make be considered some what of a maverick. It will be a running joke through the film that he would rather fight a traffic offender physically rather than use the correct procedures verbally because of his alcoholism. However it will never be made clear how he actually manages to avoid diciplinary action. He drinks so excessively because his wife recently left him and is consequently on a cycle of depression. His maverick attitue to traffic enforcement comes from his desire to become a memeber of the police force and a dellusional belief that the traffic wardens have similar power to them. William Darling is a character who is a complete opposite to Frankie. He is young and new to the trade. He believes that his actions while acting as a traffic warden is helping the community at large. Rules are important to Darling in all aspects of his life and he follows them rigidly. On the surface he is naive and comical in his timid approach but deep down he is sensitive and caring. He always tries to be the voice of reason to Frankie who in turn tries to be the voice of his ego.

The story Will follow the pair as they commence a normal day on the job but ends up with them stumbling onto a plot in which a gang wishes to kill the primeminister. It will be ridiculous and comical as 2 characters that are from action heros become the saviours of Britain.

Call the Warden has a plot that closely parallels that in Hot Fuzz.

WORKING TITLE - Fortune

Plot - 2 'nobodies' get jobs as dishwashers and fortune cookie authors in a chinese restaurant. The fortunes they are writing begin coming true. They realise early on the powers they posses with fortunes like 'your marraige proposal will be successful' and 'your meal will be free of charge' that come true in the restaurant. Slowly their greed and lust for power grows as they start to claim more and more from the fortunes they create.

Characters -

Mark: Mark is a bitter cynical young man. He has no drive to achieve anything in life, instead remaining happy to work for just enough money to go the pub in the evening. He recently came out of a relationship with SHARON whom deep down he loved but never committed fully to because of his lazy attitude.

Bertie: Bertie is a simple minded right hand man character. He is Mark's best and only friend. Bertie still lives at home with his mother whom lies to him about the where abouts of his father. She tells him that he left for the army when the reality is he left to run away with his secretary which causes he to desperately grasp onto him and never let him go.

Fortune's inspiration came from the film Skeletons because of similar characters, situations and conventions.

WORKING TITLE - Paul's action packed adventure

Plot - Paul is a young man who is obsessed with action films. The film starts by showing the audience Paul's life at home with his mother, constantly watching action movies with Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. He has a job

WORKING TITLE - Joe

Plot - Danny has just lost his best friend in a random stabbing on the street. The story follows how different people react to the event following Danny trying to find the people who did it, Joe's girlfriend and one of the accompliaces of the assailant.

ADVANCED PORTFOLIO TASK

To produce a promotional package for a film. To include a teaser trailer, a magazine front cover abd a poster. The work must be presented on a blog format and edited to individual taste.