Titles

The font type and design we will use for our title will have inspiration from other fantasy genre titles, examples below:

Titles in fantasy film often follow a stereotypical medieval font, in keeping with medieval inspired costumes and mise-en-scene. The titles are gold which connotes royalty and power along with the sense of depth and boldness. This can be seen in The Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit and Narnia.

Audience

To find more information about the publics view on fantasy films and films in general we created a survey using google forms with can be seen here. This survey included questions in which would help us find our audience members.

Fantasy films have a range of BBFC rating from PG to 12s therefore we decided to give our film a BBFC rating of 12A, this way a younger audience will also be enticed to watch it since it may be slighty older than their age, but still can be watched with a parent.

From looking at information from YouGov it shows us the different demographic of people who like different fantasy films.
These are some examples taken from the website

This demographic of people watched Harry Potter.

This was the demographic for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

This is the demographic for people who watch Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

This shows that there is a devision in gender however there are a couple trilogies in which the main audience members are male therefore making the percentage of people who watch and enjoy fantasy films.

The information below comes from our survey, this data is what the audience would like to see from our film.

Strong female lead

Strong female lead

Story

Story

Magic

Characters

A good plot

The story line and actors

A good trailer

Whether the trailer(s) are good, who's in the cast, and whether I'm familiar with the series already.

pretty much anything

costume, soundtrack and good cinematography

The setting, actors in the film, the director or even just the Mise-en-scene of a poster sometimes

Romance, psychological twists

grittiness of the setting I like more realistic fantasy

Strong story line,

A really good trailer

Fun story line

Combination of good cast and a director whose work I like

Strong story line

good story

If it was a book adaptation.

Storyline

Something new & innovative - not just a rehash of "fight the big empire/dark lord/angsty coming of age" - Ideally I'd like something that made me look at the world in a new way or gave an insight into a challenging idea

Good story

It's fun element

Something unique that is different to other fantasy films

Storyline being well shown through advertisement.

The cast and storyline

If it's really exciting and lots of new creatures

Good special effects

Advertisement

PG, soundtrack

Good reviews

The storyline

A good story line

strong characters and great story

Lots of drink

Good trailer

friends or family wanting to go

interesting subject

Sfx

Good actors

Story, cast, reviews

if other people would actually want to see it with me so i dont look like a loner

Mystery

most of the times there is a lot of humour in it

Great action scenes

Mythical Creatures

From gathering information from YouGov and our survey we have figured out that our target audience is a male age 12-25, however fortunately the age range differs giving us an advantage to reach all age ranges.  Females of the same age would fill our secondary target audience as our film contains stereotypers that appeal to this gender. For example our strong female lead, which was one of the things called for in the survey responses. 

Research and case study

Audience 

The viewers, readers, or listeners of a media text (which can be a television program, a book, a poster, a song, a movie etc)

Institution

The organisations which control and produce the media texts

Production

The process in which an idea turns into a media text through many different stages, the main production is creating the raw media/data.

Subsidiary

A subsidiary is a company partly or completely owned by the parent company because it is more than 50% controlled by another company.

Distribution - and Marketing 

The act of getting films to the viewers/their audiences by booking them for cinema viewing, or for other ways in which the movie can be purchased and watched. Distribution also comes under the marketing campaign for films such as producing posters, trailers, websites, etc.

Exhibition

Exhibiting the media/films is showing them through cinema, DVD, rentals or any other pace the audience would be able to access it.

Horizontal Integration

Is when a company is in charge of all aspects of a product's manufacture from raw materials to distribution.

Vertical Integration

When one firm or company have two or more stages of production usually done by separate companies or firms.

FOUR LIONS - WARP FILMS

Directed by Chris Morris
Produced by Mark Herbert and Derrin Schlesinger
Distributed by Optimum Releasing and Drafthouse Films

Brief synopsis 

Four Lions is comedy featuring four struggling terrorists. 'Omar' is disillusioned about the treatment of Muslims around the world and is determined to become a soldier. This is the most exciting idea 'Waj' has ever heard. Opposed to Omar and everyone else on earth is the white Islamic convert 'Barry'. He’d realise he joined the cell to channel his nihilism – if he had half the self-knowledge of a duck. 'Faisal' is the odd man out. He can make a bomb – but he can’t blow himself up just now coz his sick dad has “started eating newspaper”. Instead he’s training crows to fly bombs through windows. This is what Omar has to deal with. They must strike a decisive blow on their own turf but can any of them strike a match without punching himself in the face?


Marketing 

Here is the trailer, within the first 10 seconds the film can be identified as a comedy. 

Production 

Researching for the film, Morris spent three years speaking to terrorism experts, police, the secret service, and imams, as well as ordinary Muslims, before writing the script in 2007.

The project was originally rejected by both the BBC and Channel 4 as being too controversial a topic. Morris suggested in a mass email, titled "Funding Mentalism", that fans could contribute between £25 and £100 each to the production costs of the film and would appear as extras in return. Funding was secured in October 2008 from Film 4 Productions and Warp Films, with Derrin Schlesinger & Mark Herbert producing. Filming began in Sheffield in May 2009.

Distribution, Horizontal and Vertical Integration 

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010 and was short-listed for the festival's World Cinema Narrative prize.The UK premiere took place at the National Media Museum as part of Bradford International Film Festival on 25 March 2010, and was followed by a nationwide release on 7 May.

Despite its acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, Four Lions failed to find a distributor in the US for nine months, until the newly formed Drafthouse Films picked it up. The film had a limited release in the US on 5 November 2010.

Everest 

Synopsis
On the morning of May 10, 1996, climbers from two commercial expeditions start their final ascent toward the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. With little warning, a violent storm strikes the mountain, engulfing the adventurers in one of the fiercest blizzards ever encountered by man. Challenged by the harshest conditions imaginable, the teams must endure blistering winds and freezing temperatures in an epic battle to survive against nearly impossible odds.

Budget: $55,000,000 (estimated)

These are the production companies that provided the finance: Working Title Films, Cross Creek pictures, and Walden Media. Other films that Working Title Films have also produced include, Bridget Jones's Diary, Les Miserables, Pride and Prejudice,  Four Weddings and a Funeral etc. 

Films that Cross Creek pictures have produced include, Black Mass, Rush Black Swan, The Woman in Black etc.

Walden Media have also produced, The Chronicles of Narnia (film trilogy), Journey to he Centre of the Earth, Bridge to Terabithia, Charlotte's Web.

The films Uk release day was 18 September, 2015, the distributor for this film was Universal Studios. Working Title Films is a subsidiary of Universal studios as it is a british film company owned by them. This also links the distributor to the production company as the distributors own the production company.There are signs of vertical integration from universal studios as they own different sections of production.

The world wide gross was $203,427,584. I would expect it to be shown in Ilkley Cinema if it was a new realise as it had a high production budget and interest. However interest didn't last long and other films could be ore popular and worth while to show.

Being able to rent it through various websites or accounts makes it available for home exhibition along with it being on DVD.

Genre: Commercial Success and Budgets & Expenses

Commercial success of Fantasy films

13 out of 50 of the worlds highest-grossing films are fantasy films, including the the Harry Potter films and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This shows that films with a fantasy genre can and do have huge commercial success. However films like 

Budgets and Expenses  

For our own and based of actual films.

Expenses so far for the opening:

-Fabric (for costumes) £8

Based on other fantisy films such as Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, chronicals of Narnia, and the Harry Potter films the budget for these on avarageare around $94,000,000(£74754464.44) to $250,000,000 (£198815065.00). 

Therefore for our film idea to be profeccionaly made and in full would cost the lower end of the avarge figure.

Distibutors that have worked in the bugdet range include: Warner Bros, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Film Flex.

Genre: History

GENRE: FANTASY 

Fantasy is a fiction genre it uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many films within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and mystical creatures are common. Some films include The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit trilogy, and the Harry Potter series. This can be seen through these trailors:

Fantasy films have a history almost as old as films themselves. However, fantasy films were relatively few and far between until the 1980s, when high-tech film making techniques and increased audience interest caused the genre to flourish. earliest fantasy films were those made by French film pioneer Georges Méliès from 1903.



A few main fantasy genre directors include:

-Andrew Adamson

-Tim Burton

-James Cameron
-Chris Columbus (filmmaker)

-Terry Gilliam
-James Gunn

-Peter Jackson

-Serge Levin

-Léo Pons

-Sam Raimi
-Jean Rollin

-Bryan Singer
-Steven Spielberg
-Marcus Stokes

-Guillermo del Toro

-Gore Verbinski

-David Yates

-Robert Zemeckis

-Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson is a film director, screenwriter, film producer. He is most well known as the director, writer, and producer of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–03) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012–14). Some other films he directed includes: Heavenly Creatures (1994), horror comedy The Frighteners (1996), The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011). His career didn't originally start within fantasy films but firstly became fantasy orientated when he made The Frighteners in 1995 and when he won the rights to film Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in 1997, he became the writer, producer, and director. 
In an interview about the Lord of the Rings, Jackson said “It gives me a chance to break new ground in the movies. Every film genre has been done well over the last 100 years, but not this type of fantasy story. If we get it right, it will be the first time. No filmmaker could ask for a greater challenge than that.” This shows that fantasy films haven't been made much before this because it is a challenge  to get right. Speaking on fantasy as a genre Jackson explains it should transport(s) me out of the real world, shows me things, amazing and exciting things, that I know I’m never going to experience in real life, and locations that I’m never going to go to.

Joint production Company

Amy  (Anchor productions) and I have decided to create a new production company together called Outhaul this will feature in the idents of our film opening.

Film Opening Group- Pre Production

After the pitches I decided to work with Amy on her original idea of a fantasy genre film, however my influence will be inputted as we develop ideas together. 

I chose to work with Amy because we have worked together in the past and we work together well. Amy ads good attributes to the group, she is currently doing a level music, this is extremely helpful because she is composing for music and can use the piece of music specifically for this and inspired by this. She is also great at artistic direction and knowing what looks good and works well. Amy is also helpful because she can edit well.

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Below is the first draft written by Amy copied from the previous blog post, however the one below I will change as we develop more ideas. Updates put across all posts will be in Green.

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15/12/16 We updated the name of the film to be Anidone the characters name instead of kingdom, many other fantasy films also use the type of character or the characters name for the title.

A fantasy film opening. Set on Lord of the Rings inspired scenery, ideal to re-create on moorland.

Whilst indents play the sound of a storm would play. The sound of thunder will accompany each new indent when it comes on screen. 

The opening shot is a close-up shot looking down on a characters face in a storm (this could be achieved on a rainy day, at low light, and thunder like effects added in editing). 

The characters face would be creaturesce and the character dressed in an elaborate costume. The character can be partly covered by moss/shrubbery to emphasise time (props available on moor). This protagonist will be a female character called an anidone, played by me (Sophie).

Titles will grow from the undergrowth within shots; this will be digitally created. For example a branches and vines could move to form a title. Each title accompanied by a sound, representative of the growth of a plant.

A violin solo starts the soundtrack in a minor key, hence a sombre atmosphere is created. 

After watching similar openings to films from the same genre. We decided that along side the soundtrack a mystical/deep voice performs a few lines of script to give context to the opening.

The camera zooms out from above, showing the character in by lying unmoving in the dirt. The camera stops moving and she starts shuffling as if wakening.  New camera at medium shot goes from looking down on her to looking up as she clumsily stands (as if dizzy). 

Weather starts to resolve as a handheld medium-long shot shows the protagonist stumble/walk. Sturdiness of walk increase and rain has stopped, light is increased and music is in a major key. The camera is handheld and clumsy at the start of the following shot, however becomes more steady as the characters walk does.

Her costume becomes cleaner, they walk grandly as the soundtrack supports the sense of power and authority. Leaves follow her as she walks -added on digitally afterwards.

A medium-long shot follows a character walking, whilst other elaborately decorated faces* appear from out of shrubs and bushes. Update 25/1/16 - After scouting the moor scenery we have decided on a different way t introduce "Zosil" into the scene. A medium close-up shot shows a face erupts from a near stream, gasping for air. This creature then clambers out of the stream, shrugging of the water like a dog. This character proceeds to walk alongside the protagnist. As the piece of music develops, and more characters join the frame, more instruments join, hence it gains in volume, until it sounds full. As the screen becomes full - the sound is also full. 

The camera zooms out to a long shot, whilst which characters join the protagonist to form a straight line of walking creatures. The growing amount of instruments corresponds with the amount of characters now walking - hence the more characters there are, the more powerful the music becomes. The protagonist is centre and leading the other characters. 

The camera cranes up to show the group of characters stood overlooking a valley, the music is triumphant and ends with the shot. 

*Creaturesce faces can be achieved with face paint

Difficulties; 

• The creation of moving titles may prove difficult 
• At least 5 actors required
• Filming in the rain, and at low light

Strengths; 

• No speaking, so 'acting' should not be a problem
• Filming outside so light in most shots will be sufficient
• Set is readily available

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I believe that the idea is generic to fantasy films as it has to be to follow the genre however I believe we have done well in avoiding it being too generic. This is because we have used a female as the protagonist which is very rarely seen in fantasy films, this female is also portrayed as being powerful and grand which contrasts many representations of women in films being feeble and a secondary character. However we are still using a strong looking man for the warrior character, and possibly a boy for the 'uglier' golem inspired character (this is representative of gender in films as female characters almost always have to look pretty or attractive). 

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Writing the score

06/01/17 

The film score can only be concluded after the footage has being but together, however knowing the characters and how we wish the filming to go, the writing of the score can begin before hand. 

As outlined in the plot above, each character will have a motif (a phrase/ group of notes the repeats and develops in the piece). these will appear in the score as the character appears in the film opening. 

Today I wrote the first draft of this motif. As the "Phex" this is a pixie like character the motif is meant to sound mischievous, but harmless. This phrase should compliment the  jittery character that cautiously emerges from behind a rock.