Aesthetics and Visual Style - Planning

One of the directors who influences me the most with regard to visuals is Michael Mann. As a director, he is renowned for his visual style, particularly his use of cities and modern architecture. Often, in films such as 'Heat' or 'Collateral', the architecture and shape of the cities he uses - in the case of both these films, he uses Los Angeles - dominates the framing, or is at least prominent within it. This style of filming has influenced many other directors and films, most notably the recent film 'Drive'.

Even in indoor scenes such as the famous bank heist sequence from 'Heat', Mann chooses locations demonstrating stylish modern architecture.

As well as having a mise-en-scene demonstrating modern architecture and city lights, Mann also uses colour in an expressive way in his films, particularly the film 'Manhunter'. This has influenced me very much, and I have found ways of adding colour and style to certain locations in my film and will be utilising these.

Most low-budget British films adopt a very different visual approach to what I am influenced by and how I picture my trailer to end up looking - this comes down to the fact that mine has a different subject matter to theirs. Most British thrillers are often based around social realism and are designed to reflect the struggles of British youths in an honest way, and as a result they do not try and stylise their visual style and often set their films in the more gritty parts of London such as council estates. Though there is clearly commentary behind this, I think that the handheld camera style adopted by most British thriller filmmakers and the washed out colour palettes that are often seen in British films are overdone and are uninteresting from a filmmaking perspective - above everything else, my film is based around the middle classes and is more of a morality tale with psychological themes than a story about social struggles and youth crime culture.

The kind of visual style I want to avoid.

One of the locations I have chosen is the Spitalfields area. Though it is not too far off the settings of social realist thrillers, in terms of basic appearance, to me it has very different connotations. The architecture there is a mix of old and new, and has a pristine look to it - it is surprisingly close to the city, with some iconic modern highrise buildings being within sight when one is there.

These are images I acquired while reccying the location.

Directors such as Michael Mann also often use postmodern architecture in their films, with 'Manhunter' being the best example of how he uses this.

Influenced by the kind of postmodern and often metallic looking architecture seen in films by directors such as Michael Mann, I have chosen to set some of my trailer inside a bar which is also a microbrewery.