The student proposes creating a trailer for a post-apocalyptic film set in a world where society has collapsed. The main character is a teenager alone in the world who finds a photograph of friends and family. They later discover they are not alone when they find one of the people from the photograph. The trailer will be structured like an extended scene and include promotional materials. The purpose is to get the audience thinking about how society's divisions could lead to its downfall without aliens being the cause. The student plans experiments, filming, editing, and evaluations over 20 weeks.

1. PROPOSAL

2. Centre Name: York College
Number: 48357
Student Name: Melissa Nuttall
Project Proposal Title: No Man’s Land
Main area of activity: Film

3. RATIONALE
I based my project on a one-minute silent short film that I did last year. I enjoyed
brainstorming ideas for what I could include and where I could film. However, I didn’t
feel as though I had enough time to have made what was in my head. While the
storyline isn’t exactly the same this time, I based the setting and tone off this previous
film. I decided to do this because I enjoy the genre and genres that often come hand
in hand with this type of film. When making this short film, I used visual effects for
some of that short film and I hope to be able to use some in my trailer to accentuate
the sci-fi elements of it, but I will look more into how to make them more realistic as I
will have the time to learn how to do these kinds of special effects, I’ll look at tutorials
on YouTube to broaden my skills and learn how to do different visual effects in the
experiments part, then decide further if I want to use them. I’ll likely tailor my trailer to
a younger generation since the products I’m planning to research are for older
teenagers and young adults. I want to give the effect that other trailers of this style
can have on the audience, adding suspense and excitement for the story and
characters to engage them.

4. PROJECT CONCEPT
A teenager has been left alone to survive in a world after society has fallen. One of the
few memories of their previous life is a photograph of their friends and family, which
they take out and look at. As they continue on, they find out that they’re not alone
and try to hide and sneak away to find that one of the people either alone or with a
few others from the photograph who they didn’t think they’d see again. It may include
a flashback to explain this and give some more depth to my character. My project is
structured in an extended trailer style, with a scene at the start before going into what
would be the main trailer if an actual feature length film. To go with the trailer is
going to be some promotional material such as different versions of edited poster
and stills. With the fact that I plan to make just a trailer, to be able to include different
camera and editing tricks, I need to be able to reference the plot of the whole film. For
that, I was thinking about basing the plot around a group of survivors trying to set up
a new society after the old one fell and people have resorted to old ways od survival
without it and the main character gets caught up between those who want to bring
back the society and those who don’t.

5. PURPOSE & AUDIENCE
The purpose of my project is that I want to make my audience think. Since the setting
is during a time where society has collapsed completely into chaos and people are
divided against and killing each other, I’ve purposefully decided to have people
themselves be the cause of the government’s downfall. I could quite easily set it up
like a lot of films in this genre do, with an alien species causing either natural disasters
or killing many people that caused things to break down. However, I want to do
something different. With a lot of things happening with our government at the
minute, our views are very divided. I think that it could be a good base for a concept
like this. Of course I wasn’t going to be specific with something as I just wanted the
audience to think that something like this could be possible, without the need of
aliens to be our own downfall. Hopefully getting people to think would mean than
there’s the possibility that the chances of a similar situation

6. PURPOSE & AUDIENCE
happening in real life. Because of this I want to be able to keep a fairly loosely
wrapped audience. I feel as though it will appeal more to people from the ages of
around 15 to 25 as the ages of the main characters are within that age bracket. A lot
of films can also involve these age ranges. However, keeping it open and trying to not
be completely specific to one age category meant that I would hopefully be able to
affect several different generations into thinking about what my message to them is. It
also means that there’s less chance of a further divide between generations and a
greater chance of recovering from current political affairs, without being a political
film.

7. HOW THE PROJECT WILL BE EVALUATED
Over the course of my final major project, I plan to do a week by week development
diary on what I did to show the process of developing and making my products. I’ll
regularly update how I felt when doing this process and if I liked the outcome and if I
thought the process that I planned with went as smoothly as I had hoped it would.
Once I’ve finished my products, I’ll do a main evaluation where I analyse and compare
my products to existing products of similar styles to see how mine looks next to
professional work. I can also add a layer of reflection with hindsight as opposed to
how I felt when doing that part of my project and what I would change if I’d had the
time to do so.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Anon. (-). The Characteristics of Science Fiction . Available:
https://www.eduplace.com/activity/pdf/scifiction.pdf. Last accessed 22nd Jan 2019
• Anon. (2006). Dystopias: Definition and Characteristics . Available:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson926/DefinitionC
haracteristics.pdf. Last accessed 22nd Jan 2019
• Anon. Burger, N. Available:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1139726/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm. Last accessed
21st Jan 2019
• Anon. Wes Ball. Available: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1226871/. Last accessed
21st Jan 2019
• Anon. Gary Ross. Available: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002657/. Last
accessed 21st Jan 2019

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Ball, W. (2012). RUIN. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doteMqP6eSc.
Last accessed 21st Jan 2019
• Ball, W. (2014) The Maze Runner
• Ball, W. (2015) Maze Runner: Scorch Trials
• Ball, W. (2018) Maze Runner: The Death Cure
• Burger, N. (2014) Divergent
• Nuttall, M. (2019) Target Audience Research Survey (conducted on 27th January
2019)
• Ross, G. (2012) The Hunger Games

10. SCHEDULE
Week Tasks to be Completed Specific Tasks
1 Pre-production  Proposal and background research
 Include conventions of typical films in this style so I know what to hint at
during my project
2 Pre-production  Research- primary and secondary
 Analyse scenes from shows and films I like that are in this style and see
if I could use inspiration from it
 Make a survey to see what people typically think is in these kinds of
films and what attracts them to a trailer
3 Pre-production  Research- primary and secondary
 Collect survey results and analyse to see if there is anything I need to
change
 Research typical costumes
 Pictures and addresses of film locations

11. SCHEDULE
Week Tasks to be Completed Specific Tasks
4 Pre-production  Experiments
 Test vfx
 Use online tutorials to learn how to create cinematic titles
 Reflect on experiences
5 Pre-production  Experiments
 Test vfx
 Use online tutorials to learn how to create cinematic titles
 Reflect on experiences
6 Pre-production  Pre-Production and planning
 Plan costumes for each character, speaking with each actor
 Design storyboards
 Shot lists

12. SCHEDULE
Week Tasks to be Completed Specific Tasks
7 Pre-production  Pre-Production and planning
 Contingency planning
 Risk assessments
 Release agreements
8 Production  Production and reflections
 Film/photoshoot
 Start to edit
9 Production  Film
 Start editing footage
 Create title sequences if time is available
10 Production  Have majority of a draft done
 Film remaining scenes
11 Production  Draft peer feedback
 Make improvements

13. SCHEDULE
Week Tasks to be Completed Specific Tasks
12 Production  Film anything else that’s needed
 Reschedule to film unsatisfactory footage
 Make sure any other products are started
13 Production  Have film trailer finished
14 Production  Finish anything else off that needs it
15 Evaluation  Evaluation
 Discuss time management
 What went well and what didn’t
16 Evaluation  Evaluation
 Compare to existing products
 Overall reflection
 What would I do differently
17 Evaluation  Presentation

14. SCHEDULE
Week Tasks to be Completed Specific Tasks
18 Moderation  Make necessary changes
19 Show Preparation  Be thorough and design script to suit audience
20 Show  Remain calm throughout and don’t panic