Here is the link to the drive folder where I have placed the two trailers:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13rmIXcpFOw1RG-D7BxnRJzdZo-3d_9x-?usp=sharing
Here is the Poster:
The Menace was a project that I toyed with from the moment the options on how to present our final piece were given. The trailers for the film are designed to draw the viewer’s attention to the action that takes place on screen, as well as subtly commenting on vigilante justice and it’s place in society. The final underlying message of the piece is asked by the reporter at the beginning of trailer one, who is cut off after asking the following question: if someone is willing to put themselves in harm's way to break laws and catch criminals, why don’t they stop future crime from occurring by ‘putting them down the first time’.
The Menace is an action thriller that focuses on the double life of the titular hero, whose true identity is never given in the piece. Inspired by various artists currently working on similar dark pieces such as ‘The Batman’ and even newer content like ‘Moon Knight’, The Menace is an attempt to bring elements of believability and nuance to these superhero spectacles. Much like these new projects, the piece relies heavily on obscurity and misdirection, giving the audience no real clue as to what is going on or when the main conflict will escalate. Darkness is a heavy stylistic choice for all three of these pieces, with The Menace utilizing darkness to shroud the hero, in an almost pastiche sort of similarity to the latest Batman film. This genre of media is heavily embedded in nostalgia, which isn’t something that The Menace has to offer fans as a new and independent film. Thus instead of picking big moments based on comic book parallels like the latest Moon Knight trailers, this piece relies solely on the action and the bizarre nature of the character’s faceless appearance to draw the eye and ensnare the audience.
Yet another key difference between the projects that inspired The Menace and the film itself is the constraints of the producer. Being unable to use pyrotechnics and lack of access to professional stunt rigging/equipment meant that all of the action for the film had to be done in-camera and with amateurs. This steps away from the crisp and visual effects-heavy action sequences that have permeated Hollywood and returns to a much rawer and grittier aesthetic. By leaning into this The Menace challenges genre norms and interprets action sequences in a much more down to earth manner, adding both a sense of danger for all parties involved and a rougher visual, which is a real fight is more realistic, something that will inevitably draw the audience further into the piece. An easy example of this is the slip on the ground in the end of the second trailer, where the hero slips as they run from police sirens. That fall feels more grounded because there is nothing supernatural or otherworldly about the stunt, and there are no distracting visual effects to make you question the reality of what happened on set. It’s raw and real, something that most modern action films lose because of their sheer budget and size.
This detraction is something that the target audience of the piece has been extremely vocal about. Most males from teenagers all the way up through men in their 40s consume action and superhero flicks, with the suspense/thriller subgenre attracting a few more intelligent viewers into the audience, similar to what was seen when the public realized that The Riddler’s ciphers in the latest DC film were solvable clues. This target audience is volatile and difficult to please, with minor details such as the green vial in The Batman being blown up on social media for being unrealistic and terribly conceived. This issue of criticism is a double-edged sword. The raw and complete in-camera action approach is one way to reduce this type of outrage over small details, but the outrage can also prove to be useful. The fact that this wide range of males in the audience enjoy chatting to one another about the issues they found in a piece lends itself to this project’s favor. Since this is a small production running on a limited budget, any conversation about the film that promotes the active searching of its content is publicity that is needed.
The other genre norm that is being broken comes with the casting. Although superhero films in the greater Marvel and DC universes are becoming more inclusive, most films still center around a troubled white male whose problems are primarily first world or extremely overarching, like Superman’s alter ego conflict. Although it doesn’t appear as a major source of conflict in the trailer, both my villain and my hero are of Latin American descent. Instead of playing them as stereotypes or as just crazy individuals(see Tuco Salamanca in Breaking Bad), they’re both treated as normal characters, who are simply present on screen. This choice was made to just naturally include the representation, without needing to call onto vast culture or delve extremely deeply into the nuances of the situation. Simply having them in these roles and as leaders should set a standard. The other reason this representation issue isn’t elaborated on in the promotional material is due to the target audience, who for the most part doesn’t care about who plays the hero because the audience is invested in the action.
The final note is in regards to the branding of the piece. Given that there was a limited window to work on this project(most of which was relegated to the research and planning), The Menace didn’t have an opportunity to fully develop its brand with the audience. However, there were a few things done that would continue if the project were beyond the scope that it currently is. The first is the ciphers. Riddles and clues that indicate where the promotional events are happening or in this small window of time informing the audience they were getting not one by two trailers for the film are subtle ways to keep engagement, with the ciphers helping to match the dark and puzzling nature of the project. If more time was to be devoted to social media and brand growth there would be further developments of this dark color/lighting scheme, more quotes from characters as trailers and teasers continued to drop with new voice lines, and more ciphers for the audience to solve.
Overall The Menace is a project that comes together to form a spectacle of thought, with action to appease the mindless and subtle nuance that hints at greater conflict in the story and the world. Whether or not that second level is picked up relies solely on the audience and the brand as it continues to develop further.
The poster for this film is gritty and rough, not even remotely as crisp as the design I'd originally looked at. On filming day, Daniel(who played the character) was standing near a tree and light just happened to reflect perfectly on the hood of his jacket. So I grabbed him and took a couple photos, and this was the result.
This is a very low-budget project with 0 pull whatsoever in any sort of industry. Considering that I'm going for something stylistically that matches some of the newer blockbusters like The Batman, reaching out to people was difficult and I struggled at coming up with a way to reach someone that would have opportunities for me. Then I realized that my cipher 'riddle'(which tells you that there are two trailers instead of one) has a commonality with the Batman film, because in the trailers for those films the Riddler puzzle(which wasn't even a marketing gag) was solved in less than a few hours. So I reached out to that social media account.
If I could gain more insight into how they were able to maximize the Riddler's appeal it would allow me more time to develop my brand within this piece. So I sent them this message:
"Working on a project for media studies and beginning to hide riddles and ciphers within the images starting from today's posts. How did Y'all incorporate the Riddler's antics into your marketing and is there anything you'd want to pose as advice or partnership if this project was to really get off the ground"
Given that this project operates on a limited time window I do not think this will pan out to anything greater but I'd continue to try and push forward using similar tactics reaching out for other opportunities for collaboration.
I dropped the second teaser for the film which is just the villain posing a question to the hero. I plan on starting the ciphers on the images starting today. The ciphers will tease the film’s planned release date, live events, and will also give more lore details about the film. As far as the cipher that I’m going to use, this is the box cipher and what it looks like. The cipher is technically known as a pigpen cipher and the reason I know of its existence is that I have a ring with the cipher that runs around it.
I think giving the cipher to the images is something that can add excitement to the film. The target audience's reaction is something similar to the riddle from the Batman movie, where the postcard(which played no huge role in the film) had a cipher that was solved by the internet in less than a few hours, simply because it was something obviously present that required a solution. If I’m drawing on a similar target audience I can reward their curiosity and give them details about production or the piece by hiding those ciphers into the scene, just as a small riddle for them to solve. If I had more time to develop the brand I’d make the ciphers more complicated or layered as I went.
So IMovie has been drastically reuploaded. There have been various attempts made to figure out which text to use and I almost gave up. That's when I opened IMovie to quickly stitch together something and I found out one of their text wipes has a really cool font that comes with it. So that's what I ended up using. It was a simple yet effective solution to something that I thought was going to become a more complicated issue. The text is easy to read and has a visual pop to it, matching the dark aesthetic and everything else that comes with the piece.
One thing I will say though is that it feels too crisp, and there isn't much I can do about that because I'm filming on an iPhone and thus my camera quality is terrible with the settings I had it on. This was a problem I tried to adjust from last year and certain scenes look great but some of my nighttime footage looks rough, so the text feels a little too crisp at certain points.
I finished the masking and editing for the first 30 seconds of trailer one and need to overlay the audio but I figured I'd discuss that here. The poetic dialogue blogpost has a quote on it that I plan to use as the camera pans from one idea to the next, as the hero walks about their room and takes off the mask after a long night's work. I think the shot speaks for itself and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I wanted to see if I could pull off a one-take shot and I did so I'm super excited for the final versions of the trailers, which have started coming together.
Here is the link to the drive folder where I have placed the two trailers: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13rmIXcpFOw1RG-D7BxnRJzdZ...
