Focus Group 2

Focus Group 2

As part of developing our Red Hood idea, we acquired second focus group that included some of the same participants from the previous focus group. Unfortunately, one of the participants from our previous focus group wasn't available and so we had to add a new participant as a replacement. Within this focus group, we asked a variety of different questions with the purpose of developing our Red Hood teaser trailer idea by adjusting it accordingly to the answers received.

Before filming our second focus group, we explained our initial idea of the teaser trailer for our Red Hood, and so out first question on camera was asking their thoughts about it. Our participants came to a consensus liking the iconic scenes of Jason Todd being beaten with the crowbar. They all wanted the specific scene to not be revealed too much as it would devalue the scene if the movie is ever released. The answers received would influence us to adjust iconic scene of The Joker beating Jason Todd with a crowbar to make it more mysterious. This can be achieved by not fully showing The Joker character onscreen, teasing him to the audience. We could also only show small excerpts of the full scene, again teasing the scene to the audience.

Our second question we asked was regarding the costume for our Red Hood character. We asked the participants what our Red Hood character should look like in our teaser trailers in a way they'd have envisioned it. Some replied that they'd prefer his costume to appear functional for all sorts of movement expected of the character while others responded that they'd prefer a look similar to the original source material. We then asked a follow up question of how close they would prefer our Red Hood costume to resemble the character from its original source. They all reached to a consensus that they'd prefer the Red Hood costume to have some resemblance to the characters appearance within the original source material, as well as making the costume unique and new from us so that our Red Hood character would look recognizable, yet distinguishable. These answers will help us in the designing process for our Red Hood character. We will take inspiration and base the Red Hood appearance off of its source material, as well as changing specific parts such as the symbol or color of clothing items in order to make it more original.

The next question we asked was the type of music they'd normally expect from a teaser trailer like ours. They all reached to a consensus that they'd prefer a mixture of fast pace and slow pace music, with the music fitting the pacing of each scene. For example, there would be slow pace music playing during the crowbar scene and fast pace music during the chase scene to fit the effects. Furthermore, they all said that they'd prefer an instrumental as the soundtrack for our teaser trailer. This therefore influences our choices for the soundtrack as we'd be searching for instrumental songs that would fit the pacing and atmosphere of each scene.

For our last question, we asked for the type of voice overs that that they'd expect from our Red Hood character, elaborating on the question as to whether they'd expect his dialogue to tease the plot or the character himself. Most answered with the desire for the dialogue to be short and memorable, something that would make the character standout the most from the trailers without excessive dialogue. This would influence the writing for The Red Hood dialogue to make it short, yet effective. We would perform this by first taking inspiration from other teaser trailers that had achieved this and taking some of the aspects they used to make it effective, and applying it to our own work.

BBFC Rating

BBFC Rating

The BBFC (British Board of Film classification) is an independent organisation that reviews and gives media products – such as films, video games and music videos – age ratings. Our Red Hood film would be based on the comic storyline of the character which has elements of being darker, more violent and overall has a more adult tone than most other superhero comics and film storylines. That is because the story explores adult themes such as revenge, morality and the criminal nature of people extensively; in addition, the comic and animated adaptations of the character’s stories have depicted a lot of violence as well as in some cases the violence being graphic in nature. Overall because we have decided to incorporate these elements into our film we have decided to rate our product as a 15.

The BBFC has a number of criteria that they base a 15 rated film on:

15 – Suitable only for 15 years and over

No one younger than 15 may see a 15 film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a 15 rated video work.

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour, although there may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory themes and language.

-      In light of this, our work will not include much discriminatory language or behaviour, but there may be some displayed by some of the criminal characters in the film.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the work as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse (for example, through instructional detail). The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

-       Particularly for some of the criminal characters parts in the film, there may be references to or drugs shown, because as the Red Hood will encounter crime bosses, some of them may be dealing with drugs. However, we would not be directly showing how to use the drugs.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Whether the depiction of easily accessible weapons is acceptable will depend on factors such as realism, context and setting.

-       There may be be minor instances of dangerous acts but they would not be dwelt upon. Showcasing of weapons would only be in the context of the criminals and their environment and the scenes with Red Hood.

Language

There may be strong language. Very strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification.

-      There will not be too many instances of excessive language being used, however there would be infrequent uses.

Nudity

There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context. There may be nudity in a sexual context but usually without strong detail.

-       There would be no nudity in our film.

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

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-       There would be no sexual activity or references to it.

Threat

There may be strong threat and horror. A sustained focus on sadistic or sexual threat is unlikely to be acceptable.

-       There would be cases of strong threat and horror as the narrative would include Red Hood dealing with dangerous criminals but not too many or for too long.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but the depiction of sexual violence must be discreet and justified by context.

-       There would be a lot of violence in the film, because the narrative is about a vigilante going after dangerous criminals. There will not be too many gory instances and most would not be shown but implied.

Costume Research

Costume Research

In order to portray the character well, we felt we needed to acquire a mask similar to that which he wears in the comics, animated movies and games he's appeared in. None of us in our group believed that we would be able to create one to a high standard so we browsed the web to try to find one as close to the original as possible and at not too steep of a price. Through our research we narrowed it down to these 2 masks:

           

Eventually we made the decision to purchase the one on the left as we felt that the white eye details help separate the Red Hood from Jason Todd as his eyes wouldn't be visible, helping separate the character from his alias. We also chose to step away from the brown leather jacket that the character wears in the comics and replace it with this jacket. This was because we thought it was more aesthetically pleasing when paired with the mask whilst the hood was up and also it helped make a contrast between the dark colour of the jacket and the red logo on the t-shirt.

Addressing Key Concepts

Addressing Key Concepts

Language: For the majority of our shots, we will be making use of low key lighting. This is to create a sinister and threatening atmosphere which suits the serious and dark tone of the teaser trailer which is similar to the Neo Noir style of film. Furthermore, this conforms to the way the fictional city of Gotham has been often portrayed in both comic books and other forms of media. The costume planned for our Red Hood character consists of the actual Red Hood helmet that is a replica of the comic characters helmet; he’ll also be wearing a black leather jacket, black cargo pants, black boots and finally a grey shirt with The Red Hood symbol spray painted on messily. The reason why we chose this is to stay true to the characters traits of being an elusive, stealthy vigilante. Moreover, the reason why the Red Hood symbol will look messily spray painted, it reflects his questionable morals as an antihero, regarding the extreme (sometimes illegal) lengths he will go to get the job done.  Furthermore, we also made the character recognisable as The Red Hood, yet we applied our own interpretation on to the character to make it unique to our teaser trailer.

Institution: As our main character is owned and created by DC Comics, it only makes sense for us to look to Warner Bros. for production and distribution because DC Comics is a subsidiary of that company and is responsible for adapting the source material they’ve created to make it suitable for the big screen. Warner Bros. as an institution has been known to be successful for producing and distributing films the superhero genre such as: Watchmen, The Dark Knight, Man of Steel and many others. As a well-established institution, Warner. Bros would have a suitable budget for the production and marketing of this film, for example for Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, $250 million was spent on production and $165 million on the marketing of the movie.

Audience: To identify our target audience, we created a survey in order to gain an insight into people’s views towards teaser trailers. We spread this over social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook as we believe that they are most commonly used by the social group included in our target audience to get information from a wide group of people. We followed this up by getting 3 members of our target audience to do a focus group interview, in which we asked them more in-depth questions about our style of teaser trailer and the genre of our film. This was to further understand how we should construct our teaser trailer and what kinds of things people enjoyed seeing in teasers; character references, hints to the plot etc.

Representation: For our mugger, we decided to acquire somebody who has the acting ability to pull off a believable criminal. For the appearance of the mugger, we have decided for our actor to wear a hoodie and other conventional clothing of a working class citizen. The reason for the choice of costume for our mugger is because street criminals and gang members in urban areas are usually stereotyped to wear clothing such as a hoodie, and so therefore will become very recognisable to the audience. For out victim, we chose to pick a male instead of a female to go against the convention that woman’s handbag gets stolen ; which we saw as a negative stereotype towards them as we feel that the ‘damsel in distress’ idea needed to be challenged.

Provisional Ideas / Sketches

Provisional Ideas

Red Hood:   

Real Name: Jason Todd

Origin and backstory: In 1988’s DC storyline 'Death In the family', Jason Todd – the second Robin – was murdered by the Joker. An anomaly in the DC universe brought Jason back to life and he was found by Talia Al Ghul and placed in the Lazarus pit which restored him but brought out the worst parts of his personality changed him as a person. When he discovered Batman hadn’t killed the Joker he decided to become Batman’s enemy and to become the Red Hood – the first one was the Joker, before he was the Joker. Jason was trained by criminals to get the skills so he could face Batman, but Talia also trained him so that his good side could overcome his villainous side. Eventually, Red Hood became an anti-hero instead of a villain.

Personality:

·         Intelligent

·         Charismatic

·         Morally grey – sticks to his own moral compass

·         Mental issues – slightly unhinged

·         Witty

·         Determined

·         Vengeful

·         Short tempered

Abilities:

·         Very good martial artist

·         Acrobatic

       Superb detective skills

·         Great at stealth

·         Good Leadership skills

·         Adaptive

·         Peak human physical fitness

       Great Marksman

Publication appearances:

Comic appearances: 2005 – present

Film appearances: “Under the Red Hood” – 2010

Game Appearances: Batman: Arkham Knight - 2015

   

The opening of the teaser will have a London night-time skyline (posing as Gotham's) like this; we decided to shoot at night to create an unsettling and threatening atmosphere which reflects the atmosphere Gotham has in the comics. Also, we decided to film using a blue filter to help create that unsettling and cold atmosphere.

Flashbacks:  

We would have a grainy sand filter for when we film the flashbacks as that is a convention of how flashbacks are filmed therefore it would be a great way to communicate to the audience their watching flashbacks of what the Joker did to Jason without having to tell the audience it’s a flashback.

Narrative of the storyline:

We have decided that the narrative of the teaser will include a criminal mugging an innocent civilian but is then chased down and killed by Red Hood; this is to showcase to the public that unlike Batman and other mainstream superheroes, Red Hood is an anti-hero who deals with criminals in a morally grey fashion. In addition, we would inter-splice those shots with flashbacks to a pivotal moment of Red Hood’s origin which was when the Joker infamously beat Jason Todd to death with a crowbar from the comics. This would serve to tease part of his motivation as to why Jason Todd becomes the Red Hood.