Trailer

The making of the trailer was emotional to say the least. Its fair to say that film and video isnt my fortay, and that I find it hard to realise my true intention.


After our original brainstorms we had decided to make our film a combination of social realism and gritty thriller. A combination that worked really well in the film “Eden Lake.” A film that uses heightend suspence and a fictional setting but uses a semi social realist set up to deliver a terrifying message on the state of the nations youth. The result is an effective thriller/ horror where the villains are no different to the teens that tabloids would make you believe you see on every street corner.


As our deadline got closer and due to absences within the group, the pressure was on to get the trailer filmed. How ever, our original plan was more than slightly ambitious. It would need multiple actors and extras as well as camera skill far exceeding my own or those of any members of our group.

We went back to the drawing board and cut out all the unneccecary pieces out. I thought it would be great to make our lead seem isolated. Highlight that he is alone, taking on the antagonists.
The easiest way for us to do this was to film him in interview form and intercut with flash backs of his plight.


Shooting on the day was made more difficult due to yet more absences, unavoidable as they may have been. Myself and Becca met Lloyd (our actor) at the college and headed to my house which would be our location for the few interior shots and stand as our characters house.

After a while of filming at the house, including a particularly annoying shot through a window that insisted on refelecting the camera and alarming some of my neighbours. We headed for castle cove beach.

Thanks to a friendly relationship I hold with the proprieters of Castle Cove sailing club and the accompanying beach, we were able to use the beach of the title. And conditions were perfect. A mist rolling in of of the sea, which was at low tide and perfectly calm, hid the horizon, as well as a group of kayakers who had launched from the sailing club. The Mist worked really well to highlight the isolation of Lloyds character “Ethan.”

Make up effects were supllied by my girlfriend (a qualified theatrical media make-up artist) and were apllied by her and myself. I think that having an industry professional working for us helped to make the shoot more akin to an industry shoot.

Unfortunatly we were let down by one of our actors who was a no show, fortunatly the part didn’t call for dialogue, it was for a static shot. I stepped in, however, unfortunatly, the static shot involved me playing a corpse washed up on the shore, covered in seaweed, facedown in the water. I have to say that being infront of the camera myself made direction simple. And with Becca behind the camera we both knew what we were after and we were able to work together to get the shot.

The second day of filming was our, interior, interview setting, a college classroom lended us a white background and added to the verisimilitude that he was perhaps being interviewed by students.

To fit the continuity of the clip I reaplyed the makeup effects but made them look older. Lloyd was also wearing the same shirt as the end of the trailer, hinting that perhaps “ethan” may have been in custody or detained after the events of the trailer.

Editing was tough. As I say video production is not my fortay, and nither myself or Becca had used Adobe Premier before. So the process had a steep learning curve.

The visual edit went fairly quickly but the issue was making the audio consistent.
I used the colleges radiol weet to create drones and noises with the aid of the keyboard/synthesizer.

I then added the drone over the clip and dropped the echoed clattered in at opurtune moments and a heart beat that increased in speed to bulid suspense.