final horror trailer

This is our completed Horror movie trailer. We Have used a variety of different shot types to ensure that the trailer remains interesting throughout, so that the viewer's attention is held. The trailer opens with an establishing shot, showing all of the characters that will feature in the film, the content of the shot makes it apparent to the audience that the story involves a trip of some sort. A series of shots follow showing the group travlling to their destination. The shots were set up so that the two main characters, Grace and Jon, stand out as being key. Jon is driving the car in the shots and two shots feature just him, suggesting to the audience that he may play an important role. We positioned Grace in the middle of the car shot of the girls, again to show that she is a key character.The final shot in the sequences is shot as being from the antagonist's point of view, as he follows Grace. This helps to build tension. At the end of the shot Grace turns to face the camera, as there is a crash in sound. This is very effective and also helps to bridge this sequence and the next. There is a very brief moment of silence before a new section of music begins, this time much faster in tempo. As the new section of music begins, so does the final sequence of shots. This sequence is the falling action and has been cut together quickly, meaning that the fast tempo music accompanies it well. The short, varied shots help suggest to the viewer that the film is packed full of action. The variety of shot types used make the sequence interesting. One of my favourite shots is the shot of grace hiding with blood on her neck. I think that Grace's acting skills have allowed her to portray fear and panic really well here.The film title then appears - which is conventional of a horror trailer. In any trailer the film title will appear at the end so that the viewer is more likely to remember it. To close the trailer there are 2 final shots of a blood stained knife, suggesting that ultimately someone will die, the audience will want to watch the film to find out who! Throughout the trailer we used captions to help 'tell the story'. All captions are in the same font and all increase in size. I believe that this helps the trailer to flow.

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We used an image featuring all of the the characters in the same location as the trailer was filmed in. The image also resembles one of the shots in the film. As well as this, we have used the same style of font for the title on both the trailer and poster. We have however challenged conventions with our poster by positioning our film title at the top of the page. Usually the title of the film will be placed at the bottom of the page, however this set up did not work well with our poster image. I think that challenging this convention has paid off as the arrangement of the poster works really well and helps it to stand out amoungst others. We arranged the page so that the masthead was at the top, and the majority of coverlines occupied the left-hand third. This arrangement is often seen in conventional magazines, as the left-hand third is the area of the page that is visible when the magazine is stacked on a shop shelf. For this reason it is important that this section of the page contains information that will attract the target audience at point of sale. When researching and analysing film magazine covers I found that the
masthead often stretched across the width of the page. Our masthead only stretches across half of the width of the page, so in some ways it could be said that we challenged this convention. However, I have seen covers of other types of magazines, such as 'NME' and 'Q',
that also have mas theads that do not stretch across the page. Other conventional features that out magazine cover possesses include, a pug, barcode, date and price.
The image on its own is very powerful and is clearly the focus of the page. This was also the case for the two magazine covers I analysed previous to production, for example Empire with megan fox on the cover.
The way our trailer builds up is conventional to that of a typical horror trailer. We also used intriguing captions throughout to help 'tell the story', which is another convention of movie trailers. When analysing the trailers for 'Pans labyrinth' and 'Eden Lake' I found that the use of captions completed the trailer. They were particulary key in the Pans labyrinth trailer as there was no dialogue or commentry. As our trailer would have little or no dialogue we decided to use captions to 'explain' the storyline. Each caption is in the same font style and colour helping the trailer to flow, something that is also commonly seen. I believe that our horror movie trailer is very conventional. The trailer follows Freytag's triangle theory, beginning with the exposition, followed by, rising action, the climax and falling action. The rising action occupies a larger proportion of the trailer, as this theory states it should. We have used longer shots that portray normality at the beginning whilst the trailer remains in a state of equilibrium. The trailer gradually builds in intensity as the mysteries unfold. The pace increases not only through the use of shorter shots but also through the use of sound. We arranged the soundtrack so that it would effectively accompany the editing. The way our trailer 'builds up' is conventional to that of a typical horror trailer. We also used intriguing captions throughout to help 'tell the story', which is another convention of movie trailers. When analysing the trailers for 'Pans labyrinth' and 'Eden Lake' I found that the use of captions completed the trailer. They were particulary key in the Pans labyrinth trailer as there was no dialogue or commentry. As our trailer would have little or no dialogue we decided to use captions to 'explain' the storyline. Each caption is in the same font style and colour helping the trailer to flow, something that is also commonly seen.


2)How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The images that we have used for our poster and magzine cover have been taken in the same location as the movie trailer was filmed in, and feature the characters as they appeared in the trailer.Most of the text on the page is in red or white/grey font and there is no solid black background. Although this differs from the other two products the same red/white/black theme is still relatively present. It is common for the magazine cover advertisement of a film to differ fairly significantly from the film's trailer and poster.The images actually resemble 2 of the shots that feature in the trailer.

We altered the brightness and saturaion of the images, something that we also did with many of the shots in our trailer. We have used the same font style and colour for the film title on both the film poster and trailer, which is conventionally seen.We have used the same font style and colour for the film title on both the film poster and trailer, which is conventionally seen. This allows the viewer to immediately link the two. The magazine cover still features the film title however, not in the same recognisable font style. .

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When we showed our horror trailer to the people who we felt was out target audience we got some feedback on what they felt was good and what they would improve themselves if it was their horror trailer. our target audience could instantly recognise the genre by the music, captions, footage, clothing, make-up e.t.c. Also the dark lighting in the trailer reinforces the idea that it is a trailer of a horror genre. We had excellent comments for our film poster and how we used the lighting and shot angle, this told our group that no changes needed to be made to the trailer or film poster.We learnt that by including captions as it helped then gain an idea of the story with out giving to much away, also we had some slight negative feedback about the fonts on the cover of the film magazine, we've taken these comments into consideration and have changed the fonts to a better suited style for our audience members. Some of our feedback was about to music and acting, this was very important to us as this was a vital part in the horror trailer. without good acting the tariler would not look belivable and would not be taken seriously. They liked the music as it builds up and is not just the same paced throughout. This is what we learnt on our poll, that people like a buld up. Without our audience feedback from ou targt audience we woul not have been able to correct the mstakes to make everything better as a whole.


4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used numerous websites such as YouTube to find horror film trailers to analyse.

By using YouTube it was easy to upload them to the website blogger using the embed code which i copied into a post, so the trailer i was analysing could be viewed by other people. It wasnt too hard for me to figure out how to work youtube as its not new to me, i have been using it for a couple of years now so i knew how to use it. To edit our footage we used premier pro, our group had no experience in using the software, although we had a lesson on how to use it I found it a difficult piece of software to use in the beginning, however after a few lessons editing i began to learn how to use it and eventually my skills using the programme developed well. Similar to my AS coursework I used Adobe photo shop to create the poster and magazine cover, as i had previously used this, it was easy to pick up how to use the software again. I also used google to search images to analyse, it was very useful to have google and also the apple wedsiteto find film posters and further my knowledge in the horror genre. We also used equiptment to create out trailer, such as a tripod, video camera and lighting equipment which were provided my the school. It was pretty simple on how to work the equiptment by we did have a lesson on how to use it, once we had the lesson and played around with the tripod and camera we were confident on how to work it and what angles were best for our trailer. Before we edited the footage we filmed we had to upload it onto the mac computer, this was simple and easy to workout. All of the planning our group did has been logged on blogger.com, rather than using folders all of my coursework is put online, this is useful as if a mistake is made it can be changed quickly whereas if a piece of work is handwritten you have to write the whole thing again.We also had to use Adobe photoshop for the second time, this timeit was used to create our magazine cover and film poster. It wasnt hard to create these pro mo pictures as we used it last year and gained experience from that.

audience feedback

I have put questions on my blog by using the poll tool, this was to help me find out what our target audience like and if they agree with the ideas we have come up with.We asked the target audience for their opinion on potential film magazine names, Our group prefered 'The Cut' as it linked to a movie and also the editing of a movie making it clever and interesting. The poll results show that the audience prefered this name which made our group much more confident in using it. The majority that took the poll agreed that they wanted to see music that was slow that builds up to get faster, we thought that this would work and by also anayalysing film trailers this was the most common music and relates to Freytag's pyramid. We also asked what they would like to see or what they expect in a horror trailer, the results showed that alot of people prefered to see a chase scene as well as a murder scene so we hope to encouperate both these ideas as well as our own into the trailer.

final designs

Final magazine cover
























Initially this was our finished film magazine cover however, following the audience feedback we received, we decided to make some alterations to the texts.
























This is our complete film magazine cover. The image that we decided to use represents the film well - the photo has been taken in the woods location that we filmed our trailer in and features the two main characters. The image makes it apparent to the viewer that the film is of the genre horror. I think that the composition is very effective and works well as the main cover image, spliting the page down the middle.The left-hand side of the image (behind the tree) is much darker than the right and so helps the text to stand out. There is more 'going on' on the right-hand side of the image and so if much text had been placed on this side its prominance would have been lost. We also altered the fonts and style effects of the coverlines following the feedback we gathered. This definitely helped the cover to look more appealing. The one font that I think works really well is the 'STENCIL' font that has been used for the main coverline. I think that this really stands out amoungst the rest, which is important as that particular text is promoting the film. The main colours that we used were red, grey and white.

Final film poster
























This is our finished film poster. We decided to use a long-shot image so that the characters appear inferior against the vast, dark background. We added a 'spotlight' effect to the image so that much of the outer border was black, drawing emphasis in the centre of the image. We also adjusted the brightness, contrast and saturation of the image to give it an eerie, 'horror-like' appearance. When taking the photo we lined the characters up so that they were facing the woods. This arrangement suggests to the audience that the main location in the film will be a forest/woods. It also connotes that the group are about to enter the unknown, where danger awaits them.At the bottom (centre) of the poster is a release date, magazine quote and star rating, and a website address. These are all conventional features. The release date information also informs the viewer that the film is also being screened in IMAX 3D. We wanted to include this feature as currently 3D TV/film is becoming increasingly more available and is growing in popularity. All of this text is arranged neatly in the centre at the bottom which compliments the image well and really helps to balance the whole poster. The majority of the text is in white so that it stands out against the dark background whilst also relating to the film title. The release date is in red so that it is more obvious to the audience at a glance. Also the name of the well know film magazine, 'EMPIRE', is in red. We did a screen grap of the actually magazine masthead so that it would feature on our poster in the same recognisable style. We believed that featuring a quote from a well known film magazine would impress and therefore attract audience members.

Re-shoot/Re-edit

Our group took our photos for our pro mo work after we had filmed on the filming days and took them from different angles an locations.This meant that we had enough variety to chose from. once we began editing our pro mo work, we found that the photos we had taken worked really well with the look we were aiming for, for our target audience. This ment that we didnt have to re shoot our photos or re edit our final pieces, by taking a range of photos at different angles and locations ment that we had enough variety to chose from and therefore allowed us not to re-shoot any photos.

images of promo package

We had decided on the name of the magazine which was 'The Cut' this was because we felt it would attract our target audience in the sense it was a strong, sharp name with a double meaning. It relates to film as our films are cut when making and editing them also it could be referring to the storyline of the new film release enticing the audience to view it to see what the outcome is. The dark clothing and posture of the characters also amplifies vunerable and scary atmosphere of the cover. To darken down the left hand third of the cover we used the burn tool and selected the areas we wanted to have darker. With the help of photoshop we lightened the face of the victim to highlight her worried expression.We brightened up the female protagonist (the victim) to make her seem innocent and make her seem vulnerable intriguing the audience.

Editing process

Here is a screen shot image of the footage we edited together. Whenever we finished each session of filming we would upload the footage onto premiere pro, from there we would select which shots we prefer and are suitable for our horror trailer. We would then drag these down into the work area (the bottom mid panel), we then edited them individually, making sure that only the parts of the shot we needed remained. When we started off filming we didnt get that much done as we hoped, as there was some issuseswith the filming. So as we were organising more filming we decided to use the time we had for editing wisely. We added lighting and in some instances speed, duration, special effects to the shots we had. We did this using the drop down menu on the left hand sideof the screen, one of the effects that we used on the majority of our shots was the brightness and contrast. This allowed us to darken down shots, so we could portray more of an eerie, chilling atmosphere, as it is sceen in horror films and trailers. Obviously we followed our group storyboard, however the detailed list came in useful as some alterations had been made between the time the storyboard was completed and when filming took place. After this day we uploaded all of the footage and did as we had before, dragging down the shots we wanted and cutting them down individually. Then using the list we began to order the shots and also uploaded out soundtrack. The shots that were going to be quickly cut together at the end of the trailer (to represent the falling action) were left in a 'random' arrangement until the rest of the shots had been put into a suitable order. We used many black 'still title' slides to add captions throughout. We altered the scale of the text as the slide was played so that the text 'grew'. Once we had the basic structure of our trailer in place it was time to tweak and improve certain shots and sequences. We also had to cut the soundtrack right down as to begin with it was over 3 minutes in length and our trailer would be no longer that 1 minute, 30 seconds.To do this we used the Razor tool on the right hand side of premier pro and marked out the sections we needed to cut out. This was a very difficult and time consuming process as we needed to match the previous piece of music cut with the next. This needed to be perfect so that the audience would assume the song was fluent and sounded correct when played to our trailer. Although this was frustrating and errors were made at times we learnt how to better our new skill and edited our song to how we wanted it to sound. We then began to move our shots to fit the track. We left a couple of gaps in our trailer where we needed to film a few more shots when begining to finish our trailer, we new we had to film these it was just a matter of arranging time for the protaginist to act for us. Once we had filmed these final shots it was easy to slot this in to place, and adding our last affects to these final shots. The last few days of editing our trailer were very stressfull as we had to completly re edit our sound track as the tempo rose to earlier in our trailer according to our shot layout. To overcome this issue we repeated the first part of the soundtrack at the begining of the trailer which was the rising action, this alllowed the pace to increase at the correct point in the trailer.

analysis of film posters

The fuzzy style writing as well as the time an the picture of the film indicates that it is a film recorded on a video recorder camera. The picture is also in a house showing the target audience that it is a home made video. The baby is grabbing onto the cot creating a sence of fear and terror, also the dog is barking showing the target audience that something or someone is their, this creates tention and suspence as you dont know what is there.The text is blurry and is a deep red colour creating a horror effect. The unusual text sends a thrill to the audience as the colours used are associated with blood and death. The dark image and black background shows that the film is centred around darkness, this tells us the genre.When you first look at the poster you instantly focus your eyes on the centre, this gives the effect that we are not the only ones watching the charecters. The quote about the film sends shivers throught the audience as they are warned their sleepness nights are about to return. The poster not only indicates it is the second film but making the audience excited to see what happens to make them experience sleepless nights again as the lasrt film did.


























The image used a closeup of a woman's face, with a person's silhouete in the background is very powerful. The main actress' name spreads across the width of the page in white text. The use of white enables the text to stand out against the dark background. As Jodie Foster is a well known actress, her presence in the film may alone attract the audience. At the bottom of the poster, beneath the title, are the names of the crew and cast this is often seen in film posters. This poster has a simple colour scheme of black, white and red. Only the film title, panis room and the words coming soon are in red. As the rest of the page is in black white grey these two text are extremely prominant. This is vital as essentially the film title and release date are most important when promoting a film. The use of the word panic and the poster image clearly represent the film as a horror.

analysis of magazine covers

Empire is one of the most famous film magazine. On their covers they have the latest films advertised, for example Harry potter and the deathly hallows. This attracts the audience as they like to be kept up to date. The masthead is in a bold red colour, the magazine usually has the same font and colour for every issue to keep a house style. There is a smaller image placed on the bottom of the left hand side of the magazine. This shows that this image is importanat to this issue. The words 'massive preview special'are in a larger font than the rest of the coverlines. This is due to it being an exclusive preview of a upcoming film. This attracts the target audience as they love having the chance to win something. Their is a stapline used at the bottom of the magazine, they have advertised an upcoming movie that the target audience would be interested in. This is intriging the audience and getting them interested. Their are some coverlines on the left hand third, these are placed here as in case the magazine is placed on a horizontal shelving system.

On this magazine it is quite busy, however still appears neat, The coverlines are positioned in line with Megan Fox, which helps to highlight her importance. Words and phrases such as hot and the most wanted woman in Hollywood help show the idea of sex appeal. There is a main colour scheme of blue, grey, black and white. The other feature photographs in the bottom left corner also contain these colours. The bold title however does not comply with this colour scheme and is instead in a vibrant bright red.The main attraction of this cover is its sex appeal. Megan Fox is a well known actress and sex icon. Her bare upper body and tight leather trousers, along with her pose and expression, not only portray her in a sexual manner but the image also has an element of vulnerability. Clearly this will appeal to the male members of the audience, but also any females are likely to find this appealing as they may idolise her.

problems with filming

When we were filming out trailer we did have a few problems. One of the problems was trying to avoid the ad weather, so sometimes we had to finish early, this meant that sometimes we didnt get the right amount of filming don that we wanted. Another problem was the lighting in some of our shots due to the time of day we filmed. In some shots we filmed after school at around 4pm, due to the time of year natural light was oftern poor. For this reason some shots appeared grainy, this meant that we could not use it in our trailer. The main issue we had was trying t get all the people that were acting in out trailer together. We about 7 people to act in outr trailer and several shots involved all of them. it was very hard to find a day when everyone was availible to film and so there was a relatively long period of time when our group had littel footage to edit. When we had a day when everyone was free we had to make sure that we filmed everything that day, as it would be a problem getting everyone together again.

Filming locations

Above are the some of the locations that i have taken pictures of, that will feature in our final trailer. We are using a range of locations for our trailer to keep to the audicene interested as well as looking realistic as a film wouldnt use for example a single shot of a location throughout the whole of the film. As our trailer is based around a camping trip we will be using specific props within our trailer again making our trailer believeable to the viewing target audience.Our main location is set in the woods where the most action and chase scenes will occur. By setting our main location in the woods the audience will associate this with a horror trailer as this type of location is used frequently in these genre films.

target audience

Our target audience are people who enjoy horror movies in general but also are interested in other film genres. It is aimed at horror fans who like fast paced thrilling quick editing to make the viewer feel jumpy and on edge throughout.Our trailer is aimed at both females and males and this will be shown clearly in our trailer which will include both genders. This will be shown in our trailer through the characters clothing, the background music and the general mise en scene. To make our trailer stand out from other horror films we are using various locations with different angled shots and lighting which can also be edited on the editing software. In horror trailer and films the characters tend to wear dark clothing to emphasise the scary Ora, we will be incorporating this in our film trailer so the audience can recognise the genre along with the dramatic background music.

filming and pro mo schedule

This is the timetable that me and my group can film all the shots we need to make our film trailer. We spoke the people the were going to use in our trailer to organise what days/nights we would be able to shoot. We also had to book the camera so we made sure we had a timetable to show when we would prefer the camera. We plan to film most of the footage we need by the 18th of october, this is so we can begin editing straight away. If we start editing on time and decide we need more shots, we wont need to rush. Although the times are a rough outline, it shows our group what time to meet so we have all the characters together .

Aristotle's unified plot stucture

Aristotle identified the basic linear plot stucture in 350 BC as a simple triangle of the beggining, middle and ending. He observed that the middle section might involve some form of crisis, resolved by the end of the story. In 1863the German novelist Gustav Freytag published pie technik des dramas in which he outlined his pyramid structure for his plot. Adapting Aristotles basic triangle he added the ideas of the plot complicating, introducing conflicts and building a climax point, after which it falls away as the conflicts are worked out, the mysteries solved and finally left him with a satisfactory resolution.

The music video for "white knuckles" appears to be one long unbrocken shot, like the famous scene from good fellows. They use one location for the whole video which is the same location as "here we go again," this makes it incredibly cheap to make but highly effective as its very original with all the wild ideas, this makes them completly different from any other artist, therefore making it unique and memorable.The video feature firneds which are well trained dogs and highly encorperated into the music video. They use several effects to edit the video, a sequence of connective trials leading up to them getting splattered with paint. They aslo appear in their own video which is a very common trait, and filmed it all in one take.

initial ideas

Camera Angles
Eyeline match
Close ups
medium Shots
p.o.v shots
medium close-ups
over the shoulder
long shots
hand held shots
Extreme close up
panning shots

Editing
fading to black
quick shots
Short shots
shot reverse shot
Scenes cut to the beat of the music
Mise-En-Scene
(locations)
street
room
house
car
woods
(lighting)
natural daylight
lighting equiptment when dark
(other)
casual clothing - jeans, plain t-shirt


Special Effects
merging shots
speed up shots
Slow motion
black and white
fading in and out of shots in black and white