Teaser trailer final cut

The Magazine Cover

The Film Poster

Question 4

how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating stages?

planning and research:

In terms of planning and research my group knew what genre we wanted to do straight away (horror) but we wasn’t sure what sub genre of horror we wanted to do e.g. zombie, slasher, super natural, etc. So for our research we looked at many different film trailers on youtube. 

 super natural:

Zombie:

We also used Wikipedia to find out key information or the synopsis of the story, I think this really helped us determine what sub genre we wanted to do because we got to see a wide range of horror films and we then decided what one we wanted to do the most, and in the end we chose to do a super natural horror because this was the sub genre that we wanted to do mos,t because it looked really interesting to make, and we could really use our imagination to decide who and what the killer could be and i think that made us determined to be more creative with our product.

 I was in charge of the editing of our main product (the film trailer)  I decided to pay close attention to how some of these film trailers changed scenes and built up suspense and other key things I would have to know, I noticed that a lot of these film trailers used fast 2 second shots with a creepy soundtrack, this I think is a very effective method to build up tension. I then discovered that the key thing to remember with a teaser trailer is to not give too much away to the viewer. I took all this into consideration and started doing textual analysis of different film trailers. (as you can see on my blog).

Once my group had decided on what sub genre of horror to do, we then made a synopsis of our film and posted it on our blog. We also had to create a power point on our idea for our product, and pitch our idea to the rest of the media class, I think that this was really helpful because we got feedback on our idea straight away. We mainly got back positive comments but some people seemed to think our idea was confusing, so we took that on board and edited our idea to make the plot clearer to the audience. I think this really helped because we got it straight away we knew what we could improve straight away. 

We then started to draw up our story board we decided to draw up the key scenes from our trailer because they are the most important scenes, as you know a teaser trailer has to be short and simple it can’t be to long and it cant give too much away! We the made our camera shot list which I think really helped with filming because we had a plan on what we would have to do at what time; it was like a more detailed version of our story board. We discovered to work efficiently and get the best possible outcome you must be organized, so having our shot list and story board done really helped us.

 

Filming and editing:

When it came to filming we had hardly any problems because we knew what were doing, because we were organized and made the shot list with dialogue so we knew what everyone was supposed to being doing and saying and what type of shots we were going to be using, we didn’t stick completely to the shot lists because we experimented with different shots and found that certain shots for a certain scene looked better a different way to what we had planed, but this want really a problem because we were just seeing how we could improve our footage. One problem that we did have was that we could only have the church that we were filming in for a certain amount of time this then restricted the amount of filming time we could have. For our filming we used a HD camera which was easy to use got good quality footage it also recorded sound so that saved us time editing because then we wouldn't have to put in voice overs. 

When it came to editing we did have a few problems trying to cut down some of the unnecessary footage because at the start our trailer was nearly five minutes long and a teaser trailer is only supposed to be 1 minute 25 seconds long, we wasn’t sure what footage to cut out and what footage not to cut out because we didn’t want to lose a good scene and ruin the whole trailer. This did take quite a while to cut down, because we came across another problem while editing. We had to be really careful if we were deleting a scene not to mess up the audio that goes over the top of the clip. This did prove difficult but we got used to eventually and finally cut down our trailer to 1 minute 20 which is the ideal time for a teaser trailer. After editing and deleting all the unnecessary footage we added a soundtrack over the top of the trailer which worked really effectively at building up tension. We then added in text like “coming soon” in red font to represent blood, we also added crashing noises when the text would appear to make the text seem more intense. Other than at the start of editing our video we didn’t come into anymore problems. We edited our video with final cut pro.

Marketing campaign:

I created the marketing campaign in Photoshop both the film poster and the magazine cover. The only difficulties I came across with Photoshop was that it deleted my first copy of my magazine front cover, so I had to start again from scratch. But with both of these products we had to do a photo shoot of the main character of our film. We used a back light so that the character was emphasised from the black background we had up, also this lighting made her features come up more detailed in the pictures, this emphasised her eyes and her lips which we then edited to make look evil. 

I found the film poster easiest to edit and create in Photoshop because I didn’t have much text to add on other than the title of the film, etc. With the central image of the film poster I edited it to make it look more intense and to make it stand out from the red font and the black background. By getting the image to look like that I played around with the brightness and the saturation of the image. I also smudged round the edges of the photo to make her blend into the background more and to make her look as if she was glowing I didn’t really have any problems when it came to editing the film poster it took the least amount of time. 

Where as when it came too creating and editing the magazine cover for the second time I did struggle a bit because Photoshop kept freezing and not letting me select different layers and then it deleted all my layers so I could not move anything. But before that happend I was able to use the smudging tool to blend the central image with the wood background, this made her look as if she fit in more. I also struggled with this because I didn’t really know what to else to type to be featured in the magazine even though I did look at other magazines like empire for inspiration. But other than that Photoshop really helped be make my marketing campaign look as reaslistic as possible.

Question 3

what have you lernt from your audience feedback?

For our audience feedback me and Myleen made a questionnaire to give to our media class after they have seen our trailer, film poster and magazine. We thought that this would be a good way to get honest feedback for our work because it will remain ammoniums. 

Our questionnaire looked like this...

  

For my magazine cover the feedback i got back was quite positive, a lot of people said that it looked realistic and that the title of the magazine was realistic and it sounded like it was the title of a real film magazine. People also said that the articles i included looked as if they were interesting and they would buy the magazine to read them, they also said that it was clear that my magazine was promoting my film mainly, i showed this by having the main character as the central image and the title in big bold letters. I also got some helpful critism like "the photo would look better if you faded her into the background" or "could of used different fonts to make the magazine look more realistic". But other than that my product got very postive feed back.

For my film cover, i got back very postive critism and i felt like this was my best piece because of it. I recieved back comments like "wow that looks very realistic" and "that picture is very creepy" and i think that this is really good because thats the aim i was trying to achieve from my products. The only critism i got was " the main image could be a bit bigger but i like how she stands out from the background. So i was very pleased with this feed back.

The feedback I got for the trailer was I’d say 60% positive as people liked the linear narrative as it help them having an idea of what the movie was about.

People were quite satisfied by the writing to help them understand the plot. They say it didn’t give too much as they still didn’t get what the secret was, although they understood that something was after the girls, and they were not really sure who it was.  They’re still puzzled and would like to watch the movie to understand it.

Question 2

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

The trailer and the film poster that I created have the same target audience (ages 18-30). I think that you can clearly see that these both have the same audience because the font on the film poster is almost the same font and colour as the text that appears on screen in the trailer. Also with the marketing campaign of this film we are showing the trailer on youtube and promoting the poster on social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, etc.

 

 So there for that would attract a younger audience because social networking sites are usually used by teenagers. Also the images on the film poster I think would attract younger people because the actors in the film are roughly the same age as them so there for they can relate to the film. The main target audience is people ho enjoy watching super natural horror so with the trailer and the film we stuck to the typical conventions of dark gloomy colours, disturbing images, blood, etc. When they see all these things combined they are going to be attracted to this film either from the trailer or seeing the film poster. 

Where as with the magazine cover it still has the same main specific audience (people who love horror) and this product would work to attract them because the magazine cover is a “millennium picture horror edition” so the whole magazine is about horror films, so there for it would attract a wider range of horror lovers (people who enjoy zombie movies, slashers, etc) because they will buy the magazine and see the film being promoted and want to go see it. I also think that this product would attract a wider older audience compared to the film trailer and poster because the film trailer and poster are free to look at where as the magazine you would actually have to buy so there for you’re attracting someone with an income. Also this magazine does not always promote horror films so there for the people who usually buy this magazine or enjoying reading it might be attracted to this film also.

 

In conclusion I think that all 3 products attract the same main audience but the film trailer and poster attract less of an audience and a younger audience because of the way these things are promoting the film, with these two people don’t pay as much as attention to the product they don’t appreciate it as much as the magazine cover because they’re free to look at and share with friends. Where as the magazine cover attracts a wider more mature audience to this film.

Question 1

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

We wanted to make our media product look as realistic as possible, so we looked at different teaser trailers from the same genre and we did textual analysis on them. We noticed that in most of the trailers we looked at held the same conventions but used them in different ways to make there trailers more effective. 

Here are some of the trailers we looked at....

 devil (2010)

 

 

The house of wax (2005)

From these trailers we found a range of different methods to make the trailer effective for example using short fast clips gives the audience a taste of the film with out giving too much away. We then discovered that if you put a creepy soundtrack with the short clips then it makes your trailer look more intense and this builds up the suspense there for achieving the goal of a horror trailer. We took this into consideration and decided to use short quick clips also, this at first proved difficult because we didn’t know what footage too keep or to get rid of and ended up having a four minute trailer, but we eventually cut it down to 1 min 25 which is the typical length of a teaser trailer. We also found from the trailers we watched that there is a lot of use of jump scares which I think are very effective because if you can make an audience jump from just a trailer they will probably want to see the film more because they will expect it to be very scary and entertaining, so we decided to use this method in our trailer also, in the last clip of our trailer we make it seem as if the trailer has ended when the door slams but as it fades we then added a loud banging on the door, which I think is an effective way of making the audience that is watching the trailer jump. We also added crashes to when text appeared on screen to make the meaning behind the words on screen seem more powerful and intense. I think that the main thing you need to remember for teaser trailers are that you shouldn’t give too much away because no one will want to go see the film if they already know what is going to happen, and I think with our trailer we showed enough for the audience to want to go see it but not enough for them to guess the ending because they don’t know who or what the killer is or if they all die or one survives etc. I think with our trailer we stuck to the stereotypical conventions of horror because we wanted to make it look as realistic as possible so we chose to use what we knew worked well with this particular genre for example the setting is an old church, and old abandoned places are usually where horrors are set, as you can see from "the house of wax" trailer, but I think that we also challenge the conventions of this particular genre because of the narrative of our film, we took different ideas from the different sub genres of horror e.g. its a supernatural horror but the characters get murdered as if it was a slasher movie. I think this is quite an original idea for a horror movie and i think that it works well.

I think that the film poster I created conforms to the stereotypical conventions of this supernatural horror I decided to use a dark gloomy background to represent the kind of film this would be, I also included company logos to make my poster look more realistic. I decided to put the film name in a big bold red font to make it stand out from the dull black background, also the colour red could represent blood and foreshadow what will happen in the film. I also included the films website to make the poster look official, I based my media product on the grudge film poster because I thought that was very effective and intense poster and it attracts the audiences eye.

As you can see with my poster and the grudge poster they both have the image of someone with there over there face, which gives the character a sense of mysteriousness, which is what i wanted because i didn't want people to guess who the killer is or why they are killing the other people. Its as if the hair in front of the face forms a mask or a hidden identity. Which i think is a very effective method because this i personally think is quite a disturbing image so i think it attracts the audience because they look at it and try and work out what it actually is. With my film poster i think i conformed completely too the stereotypical conventions of this media product because i wanted it to look as scary and realistic as possible but i think i made it more individual and unique with the title and the tag line e.g. the film is called "the secret" and the tag line is "don't say it" i think that these work well together because they link with the trailer and the poster.

With my magazine cover I looked at other magazines like empire to see what layouts look best or what fonts work well with each other, etc. I thought of the name of my magazine randomly it was the first name that came to my head and I think that it worked quite well and sounds like a real magazine name. The magazine cover took the longest time to create because every time I added a new picture or a new piece of text, I would have to move stuff about to make the layout look realistic and not messy. I included the date, the bar code and the magazines website to make it look even more authentic. Again I think with this media product I stuck to the conventions as well because I wanted this piece to look as realistic as possible. I used quite a dark and gloomy colour scheme to with the misenscene of the film the magazine was promoting. I chose that central image because it makes that particular character look quite dominant but also quite scared I did this because then it would confuse people as too who the killer really it gives a sense of uneasiness like something bad could happen at any point.

As you can see i decided to use the same kind of font and colour for my magazine name, i chose this because i thought that it really made the name stand out from the dark background and because the colour red connotes danger. I also used the same kind of buzz words e.g. "we name the top 10 horror films of all time" because i think this makes the magazine look realistic and it attracts the audiences eye.

I conclusion I think that all three of my media products conform to the stereotypical conventions of this genre because then that way the products look more realistic and genuine, and you know that this is the kind of thing that works well because it’s the conventions of horror, but I think that we also have our individuality on the film trailer because the narrative behind it is quite different from most films, even from just by the location its set in, the people playing the characters, etc. So there for I think that we have both developed and challenged the stereotypical conventions of this genre

Locations	shot	Camera POV	Action/dialogue
At the park	1.Long shot of a little girl	The audience	We don’t show the little girl’s face.
The road	2.Establish shot of the road	The audience	Cars driving pass.
	3. Mid shot of the girls	The audience	The girls talking to each other.
	4.Long shot of Tasha	The audience	Tasha walking toward the girls.
	5.Mid shot of the girls	The audience	Walking down the road.
	6.Establish shot of the church	Audience	Diegetic score music.
	7.Close up of the church’s windows	Audience	Score music.
	8.Mid shot of Tasha	Audience	Dialogue.
	9.Low angle shot of the girls walking inside the church	Audience	Score music and actors’ dialogue.
	10.360 pan	The girls	Score music.
	11.High angle view of a litle girl getting told off	The girls	The little girl asking other people to go away.
	12.Mid shot/pan  of all the girls	The girls	The girls telling each other how the church feels creepy.
	13.Long shot  of Alex and Shaneil	The other girls	Walking around the church.
	14. Close up of each girl’s face	Audience	The girls looking at each other
	15.360 degrees pan of the out side	audience	Score music
	16. Mid shot of the girl being pushed	Girls	Score music
	17.Close up of Tasha	Girls	Asking them to play a game
	18. Mid shot of sophie in the other side of the room	audience	She doesn’t want to play/ score music
	19.Close up of Shantelle		Score music.
	20. 360 degrees pan the church		Shantelle says I used to self-arm… Score music
	21.Close up of Alex and Shaneil	The other girls	They look at each other
	21.Mid shot of Shaneil	Audience	Shaneil says she slept Sophie’s bf
	23.360 degrees pan of the church	audience	Score music
	24. extreme Close up of Tasha’s face	audience	‘ I killed someone’
	25.Pan across the church	audience	Score music.
	26.high angle shot of Chantelle dead on the floor	The girls	Girls running towards her body
	27.Pan across the church		Score music.
	28.multiple close up of the girls
	29.long shot of the girls		The girls running around the church looking for the killer
	30.mid shot of Sophie and Shaneil talking		They think that it’s Tasha that killed Chantelle
	31.Pan of Alex running outside the church	audience	She’s scared, desperate and is looking for the killer
	32.Mid shot of Shaneil in the confessing room	Tasha’s	She screams and calls the other girls
	33.low angle shot of Alex, Tasha and Sophie		Score music, Alex scared she runs away
	34.close up of Tasha from the back	The antagonist’s	She finds out who the killer is
	35.pan across the church		Score music
	36. Long shot of Tasha crucified/ held on a tree	Alex’s	Score music
	37.extreme close up of Sophie in the bush	Alex’s	‘’don’t say it’’