Our Title

DYSPHORIA  [dis-faw-ree-ah]

According to Wikipedia, dysphoria is:

"Dysphoria (from Greek δύσφορος (dysphoros), from δυσ-, difficult, and φέρειν, to bear) (semantically opposite of euphoria) is medically recognized as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of depression and discontent...Mood disorders can induce dysphoria, often with a heightened risk of suicide, especially in persons with bipolar disorder who are in a depressive phase.
As the term refers only to a condition of mood, dysphoria may be experienced in response to ordinary life events, such as great illness or grief."

According to Dictionary.com, it is a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness, or fidgeting.

As a medical condition, it has long been debated whether it defines manic or depressive episodes. As a writer on About.com put it - "The truth is, it is actually quite valid as a description for either mania OR depression. Dysphoric mania, as described in the Merck Manual, is "prominent depressive symptoms superimposed on manic psychosis." Symptoms include:

• crying
• curtailed sleep
• racing thoughts
• grandiosity
• psychomotor restlessness
• suicidal ideation
• persecutory delusions
• auditory hallucinations
• indecisiveness
• confusion

In everyday English, the complex terms above for symptoms of mania with dysphoria include - trouble sleeping, racing thoughts, grandiosity, mental and/or physical agitation, thoughts of suicide, feeling persecuted for no reason, hearing things, and having trouble making decisions (along with others)."

The suggestion of dysphoria being linked to bi-polar disorders gives our idea of the protagonist and antagonist being "mirror images" of each other added depth and a greater psychological appeal. With the similarity in build, height and looks of the two actors, the audience could begin to be persuaded (in this case, deliberately misled) that there is the potential for one of the characters to merely be  product of the other's imagination and delusions.

Censorship

We decided to classify our film as a 15.  We looked through the BBFC classification guidelines and we decided that it was the most appropriate classification.

Under the guidelines you are allowed:

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs

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

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity

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

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed 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.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

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 or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.

Final Poster Idea

Our final poster idea; we changed the layout because our strongest design was the political one, with the union flag background and the "lies/truth" tagline, however, when seen without the other three posters, it does not effectively convey our genre, looking more like a political social realism drama than a soft sci-fi thriller.

We used the idea from our landscape poster, the two faces, two give the sense of the "mirror image"part of the narrative. This is a similar layout to the Equilibrium poster, which suggested the rivalry and shows it to be a character-focused film. We used monochrome photographs becase it directs the focus to the faces without drawing it away from the tagline and title. We added the black rectangles to their mouths because it shows the absence of freedom of speech whilst drawing on connotations of anonymity and news footage where eyes and faces are blacked out. We covered Jon's photo with TV static to implicate him in the shutting down of the news networks.

The background is an image of a staircase that Luke jumps down in the trailer; it gives the poster a very urban, "grungy" feel, inkeeping with our ideas from the Social Stage theory. Staircases are also a convention of thrillers, and the strange angle of the image invokes ideas of Escher's stairs, playing the psychological side of our narrative - that no one is winning, and the fight is just going round in circles. We kept it monochrome to stick to the colour scheme and so it would not detract from the photographs of Jon and Luke.

We changed our font from "Dink" to "SteelTongs" because, again, we felt Dink gave it too much a social realism feel and we wanted something crisper that would convey the political side, as well as the rebellious side. The font and the colour scheme of the tagline and title are very similar to those from the Tinker Tailor Solider Spy poster. The tagline is in the middle of the poster, separating the antagonist and protagonist, a metaphor for their different causes. We put the title in red so it completely stands out from the rest of the poster, as it sets the tone for the whole film, and as it joins their shoulders, so the feeling of Dysphoria is the one thing they have in common. Underneath the title we put the date - 21/12/2012 - the film is released; we chose this date for the connotations of the Mayan calender, when the world ends, suggesting the completely revolutionary nature of the narrative of the film. We removed anything separating the numbers, to give it the feel of a code, as with the Tinker Tailor Solider Spy website, the date of its release is the access code.

SOPA and PIPA

As current affairs is an important part of our trailer's narrative, the recent Sopa/Pipa debate has been an interesting development within the news that has links to our trailer.

Sopa and Pipa are United States bills that have been introduced by Lamar Smith (R) and Patrick Leahy (D) to combat online piracy. While proponents of the bills claim that they will protect the intellectual property of its owners, there is a divide in the US, and the world, over whether the bills will achieve anything at all. Some argue that the bills will do quite the opposite and will actually restrict the "free" internet. Examples of the "bigger" opponents to the bills include Wikipedia, which held a 24 hour "blackout" of its website in protest over Sopa and Pipa, and Google, which "censored" its doodle.

"Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge": The sight that greeted visitors to the Wikipedia site during its blackout.

Google's censored doodle in protest over Sopa

The Obama Administration issued a statement that included: "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." Essentially, the Obama Administration appears to be taking an opposing stance on the issue of Sopa and Pipa.

The internet community has issued large-scale opposition to the bills, and "hacktivist" groups such as Anonymous have already started cyber-attacks on US sites. On a lighter note, the humour of the internet community is still alive and well over the issue, as seen through the meme of "Conspiracy Keanu".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16628143

State Leaders In Life and Film

While conducting research about our antagonist - the British Prime Minister, we noticed a pattern occuring in the films we deconstructed...

Bill Clinton

US President 199

 Independance Day (1996)

President played by Bill Pullman
Pullman is white, with short hair and similar build to Clinton

The West Wing (TV Series started 1996)
President played by Martin Sheen

Sheen is white, with short hair and also has a similar build to Clinton. In this image, he is even posing in the same way with a similar background.

President Barack Obama

US President 2009 to present

 2012 (2009)

President played by Danny Glover

Glover is black, with short cropped hair and a similar build to Obama.

Prime Minister Tony Blair

UK Prime Minister 1997-2007

 The Queen (2006)

Played by Michael Sheen

In this narrative, the actor was actually playing Tony Blair.
Sheen has dark hair, a red tie, similar haircut and is white.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown

UK Prime Minister 2007-2010

 Love Actually (2003)

Played by Hugh Grant

Although the Prime Minister at the time was Gordon Brown, Hugh Grant's character seems to reflect the last publically elected Prime Minister, who was Tony Blair. Blair's popularity meant that he was more suitable to reflect within that the Romantic Comedy genre.

Grant has brown hair, is white and has a similar build to Blair.

Prime Minister David Cameron

UK Prime Minister 2010 to present

Black Mirror (TV Drama 2011)

Played by Rory Kinnear. Kinnear is white, has a similar hairstyle to Cameron, and even wears a blue tie, the Conservative party colour.

[David Cameron (Left), Nick Clegg (Middle), Jon (Right)]

We echoed this idea, our protagonist is white, has short dark hair and a similar build to our current leaders.

Developed Poster Designs

We developed our initial poster designs with better quality photos and editing, also incorporating our second tagline, credits and date.

Webpage creation

For our webpage, we decided to create an initial home page, with two subpages, one for each "cause". Clicking on either photo will take you to the prospective pages.

We aimed for a motif of red, black, white and blue, both symbolic of patriotism and rebellion.

For our Rebel page we were aiming for a recruitment style website. The photo shows our rebel leaders and the rebellion symbol. We blacked out the leaders eyes for anonymity.

The message of the page is to connect members of the resistance. The headers have been renamed for this reason. We have replaced 'photos and videos' with the title 'Reconnaissance' and 'Cast and crew' with 'Recruits and Targets'. We use the red, right hand button 'Join us' instead of the 'pre-order tickets' button. All of these we use to further create the ambiance of a rising rebellion.

We attempted to create a government information website. We inserted our politicians speech onto the page and a photograph of our politician to create a political party feel. The headers here have also been replaced. 'Photos' are now 'Archives' (inspired by the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy webpage), 'Videos' are 'Surveillance', 'Cast and crew' has been replaced by 'Agents and Suspects' and 'Contact us' stands in for the 'Pre-order' button.

Since the screenshots we have added a back button to both to return the viewer to the homepage.

Recruitment leaflet prop

Recruitment leaflet prop - rebellion symbol

Date at the bottom is 21/December/2012 is the cryptic font Windings.

BACK:

Newspaper words and letter highlighted - code

It reads "Our mind is so important, you feel that a major cultural change will separate crime. understand we believe in people."

"freedom of voices"

So cryptic even we don't understand it much but it was very hard to create any kind of relevant message.

Franklyn Trailer Deconstruction

The teaser trailer for “Franklyn” immediately presents itself in the parallel universes of “Meanwhile City” and real-life London. This gives an audience the instant impression that it is a sci-fi/fantasy film and that part of it is not “real”. Indeed, one character remarks; “If you believe in something strongly enough, who's to say if it's real or not?”.

The darkness of Meanwhile City, the disguise of the masked man and the dark clothing of the guards/police give a strong sense of danger and mystery. Adding to the danger, at the beginning of the trailer, one character, heard through a voiceover, says; “Tonight... I'm going to kill a man”. This is played over a visual of the character putting together a sniper rifle, which creates a sense of unease within the audience, as they fear that something violent is going to happen. The dark, uniformed appearance of the guards/police is reminiscent of Orwell's “Thought Police” in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, and its 1984 film adaptation.

All three characters, in their real-life London forms, are introduced after a shot of a black screen with the words “Three strangers”. This adds to the sense of mystery within the narrative of the film, and the unease as an audience does not know how their lives will connect. The anchorage of the trailer is also futuristic, adding to the sci-fi nature of the film.

The images of Meanwhile City show it to be dark, bleak, “unforgiving” and archaic in appearance, with clear similarities with post-Industrial Revolution London. While there seems to be danger in both “worlds”, Meanwhile City is presented as the threat to both.

The fast-paced straight cuts between shots of the masked character fighting creates a major shift as the rest of the trailer had previously been slow-paced, and adds pace to the trailer, showing the audience that the film also has an action feel to it. The speed of the music, which increases, also adds to the tension of the trailer, especially during these action shots.

The fact that Franklyn was made using a relatively low budget gives the trailer a more gritty feel to it. This, and that Franklyn is a dystopian fantasy film, makes it an ideal film to research as the dystopian nature is relevant to our trailer's narrative.