Final Teaser Trailer

Untitled from Jamie on Vimeo.

Using IMovie myself and Annie edited our film trailer further in order to improve. We added our production logos to the start of the trailer in order to make the trailer look professional. We used IMovie to its full extent by adding transitions, text and sound. We added fade to blacks in appropriate places so clips didn't jump from one to the other, which also built up tension. We found a copyright free soundtrack which we found fitted in with out trailer really well, we edited this at the end to fade out so it didn't stop abruptly as would not sound polished. We also used the feature of text inserts in our trailer and we added these where appropriate to be typical of actual trailers, and to also show the name of the film and 'coming soon' which is very typial of a teaser trailer. The text inserts also came with transitions which add effect to our trailer.
Overall, I am happy with our final draft trailer. To improve we would have liked to been able to get the same font that we used on our final poster for the name of the film 'Torture'.

Evaluation

Evaluation

In order to gain insight into typical ‘horror’ movie teaser trailers, magazines and posters I studied three different types within the subgenre of ‘horror.’ From studying ‘Donnie Darko,’ a ‘sci-fi’ horror I found that the use of colouring can be applied effectively in order to portray the type of film that is be presented. For example the use of the electric blue colour scheme in the poster is laser like and therefore gives a scientific and unnatural vibe. The devices most effectively used in the teaser trailer for ‘Donnie Darko’ would be the regular use of a ‘fade to black’ which my group and I have adapted for use in our own teaser trailer. From looking at the teaser trailer of 'The Shining' I noticed how sound can be used to build up momentum within a teaser trailer. I also noticed how flashing imagery can present things frantically. On the other hand, the movie poster for 'The Shining' is incredibly dull and simple, lacking interesting colours and features which should entice the audience. Perhaps this is a representation of the time frame in which the poster was made, (in the 1980's) but myself and my group decided not to withdraw any devices from it, but more use it as a basis of how not to create our poster. A very strong movie poster in which I took great inspiration from would be that of 'Pans Labrynith', a poster which is eerie and original whilst keeping an air of horror and mystery about it. I took inspiration from this and used some of the same devices on my own poster, for example the star rating system out of five, used in order to show the audience how well the film is being percieved by critics. A higher rating out of five would persuade more to view the film, and so I decided to put five stars on our 'Torture' movie poster.

Our movie poster is atypical of the Movie Magazine genre, with one main image taking up the focus of the whole page. Our magazine is typical of the 'horror movie' genre as we have used dark colouring with black and white images and a blood stained brush effect. The tagline at the top of the page with names of other new releases adds realism to the piece and is very typical of not only a magazine with a horror film on the front, but also of thole magazine genre. Something which challenges the conventions of the magazine would be the outlined images. Usually magazines contain one whole image, and not two single ones. However, although this is not typical of magazines in general it is not unheard of, and I believe it adds individuality and orginality. We have also added stereotypical features of a magazine for example the masthead, barcode and coverlines.

For our teaser trailer we chose the genre of 'Horror' because we felt we would have more freedom to looked at typical teaser trailers and adapted them for use for our trailer. The use of fade to black is a common device used in not only horror movie trailers but in all trailers in order to create and build up tension, something which was seen in the 'Donnie Darko,' 'The Shining' and 'Pan's Labyrnith.' Another device used to add build up tension would be eerie and suspensful music, so we chose a Royalty and Copyright free piece of music from YouTube, which we felt would fit our piece and build up the tension perfectly. We added text inserts to our trailer in order to not only inform our audience of the tagline and name of the trailer but to also convey typical attributes of teaser trailers. The plot line was simple and very much similar to the recent rise in popularity of 'Slasher' movies, whereby the plot line includes teenage characters and there is a serial killer on the loose. Myself and my group chose to use a variety of shots in our trailer, for example an establishing shot, long shot, mid shot and pan, in order to show a full range and point of views. Also, every film and their trailer uses a wide spectrum of different shots in order to keep the piece interesting and varied.

For our movie trailer we decided on a straightforward plot, being that a school teacher was being stalked by an obessessive student at the school. For this we needed to decide on a chain of events would would build up to the 'cliffhanger.' Therefore, we decided to build up our trailer and start of slowly, with a simple letter being placed upon a desk, being read by the teacher and containing threatening material - the words 'I want to see your insides.' This gory and very explicit writing serves to shock the audience and make them fearful for the teacher's safety. The next obsessive gift left for the teacher is a single rose, something which is iconically seen as loving or affectionate, but in our trailer is subverted to be threatening and strange. The fact that the rose is also dead and withered could perhaps foreshadow events that could have occurred in the full length feature. We decided to have a classroom scene in order to make the audience believe that the stalker is in the room with the unsuspecting teacher, and in close proximity on a regular occurence. The next event would be the rose being dropped into the bin, as a sign to show that the teacher is not really that phazed by the stalker but wants rid of his 'gift', which is rather foolish as she should be. The final event in the trailer is of the teacher being followed by the stalker to her car, and ends with a shot of him peering round at her.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
-how have you created links across all three products?
house style, colours, characters/actors, taglines, relevance to trailer

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
What do you audience think of your final products?
-ask people to comment by looking at your work on your blog
-positives
-things you would improve

For my first audience feedback, I asked my targert audience would like to see featured in a horror film, what type of horror film they prefer and what influences them to watch a film etc. This helped our group to make decisions about what our final film trailer would feature and involve. From the questionnaire we gained the knowledge that


4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and reasearch, planning and evaluation stages?
-Adobe photoshop
-imovie
-cameras
-Apple Macs
how has eash piece of software allowed you to do what you planned to do?
Give examples ( video evidence)
Was there anything you were unable to do and why?
How do you feel you have progressed in software use?
Do your plans and final products correlate? Why/Why not?

Final Magazine

This is our final magazine cover which was created by Jamie. It is a huge improvement on our third draft. The image used looks really effective and shows both of the main characters whereas the second draft just showed the one. Jamie has edited the image using Photoshop really well, which makes the image stand out to the audience and also gives a horror feeling which fits in with our genre. The masthead is in the left hand third which is very typical of a magzine so the magazine will be noticeable to its target audience when on the shelf. The font of 'Torture' looks really effective and suits our Horror genre but it need to be bolder to stand out mroe to the audience. Also the tagline 'Obsession can be total..' is quite hard to read so the colour of the font should be different. To make this magazine look like a typical magazine, cover lines would need to be added the left hand third or images of new upcoming films.

Questionnaire of Final Products

Poster Questionnaire

1. Do you think our movie poster looks professional?
Yes/ No

2. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest) how effective do you think our image is?

1 2 3 4 5

3. Would you go to watch this film just from seeing the poster? If yes, please specify why?

Yes/No

4. What do you like about our poster?

5. Is there anything you dislike about our poster?

6. Do you believe we used Photoshop effectively on our poster?

Yes/No

7. Do you feel our poster displays devices typical of a 'horror movie' poster? If yes please specify why.

Yes/No

Magazine Questionnaire

1. Do you think our magazine cover looks professional?
Yes/No

2. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest) how effective is our cover image?
1 2 3 4 5

3. Would you watch our film from seeing the magazine cover? If yes please specify why.

Yes/No

4. What do you like about the magazine cover?

5. What do you dislike about our magazine cover?

6. Do you believe we used Photoshop effectively on magazine cover?
Yes/No

7. Do you feel our magazine displays devices typical of the 'horror movie' genre? If yes please specify.
Yes/No

Teaser Trailer Questionnaire

1. Would our teaser trailer persuade you to watch the whole feature length film? Give a reason for your answer.

Yes/No

2. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest) how effectively do you think our trailer builds up tension?

1 2 3 4 5

3. What do you like about our trailer?

4. What do you dislike about our trailer?

5. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest) how effectively do you think the music is on our teaser trailer?

1 2 3 4 5

Poster Answers (Example)

1. Yes
2. 3
3. Yes, because the image draws your attention in and also the title 'Torture' stands out, I love horror films so I would very much consider seeing this film from just looking at the poster.
4. I really like the title 'Torture'. It looks really effective and stands out being red against a black and white image. I also think the blood effect looks really good and fits in perfectly with the horror genre giving the feeling the film may be gory.
5. To change the poster, i would have put the title of the film 'Torture' at the top of the poster in order to catch the audience's eye and moved the main actors/actresses to the bottom as they aren't as important. I would also have made the release date more noticeable so the date stuck in the target audience's mind.
6. Yes
7. Yes. The black and white image gives a horror feel and also the blood on the 'Torture' is a very typical gory look. It also looks like a professional poster as it includes the age certificate, production logo and a website.

Magazine Answers (Example)

1.Yes
2. 5
3. Yes because the image looks really effective the way it has been edited and makes me want to watch the film.
4. I really like the image used on the magazine cover and the text fits in really well with the horror genre.
5. The only thing I would add to improve the magazine cover is add some cover lines, this would make it look more like a typical magazine cover.
6. Yes
7. Yes. The colours used red, black and grey are very typical of the horror genre and the font of the title 'Torture'. The way the image has been edited also looks very typical of the horror genre.
Trailer Answers (Example)

1. Yes because it looks good, and the way it builds up the tension makes you want to see what happens to the teacher.
2. 4
3. In this trailer I like the end where it shows you quick flashes of the film, it looks very effective and exciting. I also like the music, i think it fits in well with the trailer and really helps to build up tension.
4. To improve this trailer, I think it needed some more exciting clips from the film but without giving too much away. This would really draw the audience's attention in.
5. 3

Production Logos

These are the production logos to be used at the beginning of our 'Torture' teaser trailer. We have decided to use production logos because we feel they will add a professional and realistic like appearance to our trailer, as they are nearly always displayed at the beginning of real trailers. We created these very simple logos in photo shop by just adding text on top of an image. For the 'Casper Productions' logo we inverted the colours from a black ghost on a white background to a white ghost on a black background, to add a more sinster feel.

Second Draft Magazine

This is our second draft 'Film Star' magazine made by Annie. To achieve this effect Annie cut out an image of Liam on photoshop and made the image black and white, but colourised the rose to be red and green, in order to look professional and effective. However this magazine lacks depth and looks far too simple and plain. The magazine however does include typical conventions of a 'Horror' film being presented on a cover, for example dark colours and the regular use of red text. The magazine also includes a date and a price line, a bar code, headline and cover lines, features of every magazine avaliable to buy. The headlines need to be made bolder and outlined in order to be eye catching and attractive to potential readers. Other smaller images could also be used near the cover lines in order to provide a more visual idea of what is featured in the magazine, because this is more likely to be looked at than the text.

Final Draft Movie Poster

Soundtrack and Editing

Third Draft Movie Poster

For the third draft I decided to add photoshop brushes and images typical of a film poster, for example the '18' film certificate image and an image of the film studio. I changed the colour of the red to a deeper red, in order to convey a more 'blood' like appearance.

Second Draft Movie Poster

In order to create the movie poster I changed the image to black and white using the effects on photoshop. I then added different types of text and

Second Draft Teaser Trailer

Untitled from Annie Byrne on Vimeo.

This is an improvement on our first draft trailer as we were able to use high quality filming equipment and also able to use IMovie which is software that allowed us to cut clips, rearrange them and add transitions etc. This film trailer doesn't really build up tension. It cuts from each clip to the next. Fade to blacks need to be added in and the pace of the film trailer should start slow and get quicker in order to add tension. The close up of the eyes adds drama to the trailer, showing the audience how to feel at that moment in time. Keeping the storyline simple adds suspense, simple storyline for a horror trailer makes it easier to play on fear.
To make this film trailer more memorable to the audience some key features need to be added. Text inserts puncuate the trailer. Music over the film trailer helps the build up the tension of the film. To make this mroe effective, the sound needs to fit in with what is happening in the trailer and make certain parts of the trailer to stand out to the audience.
Our second draft trailer was edited by myself and Annie with input of decisions from Jamie and Liam.

Potential Images for Poster and Magazine

This photograph would not be a a good picture to use for our film magazine or poster because it does not have a lot happening in it. The photograph also doesn't show the actresses' face so it would not be easily identifible who it is or what film they are in.

This photograph would not be effective for use on our film magazine or poster because it doesn't include the characters in the film or any visual information that may entice and allure the potential audience.

This image is not fit for use on either our film magazine or movie poster because the invidual is not actually in our trailer so therefore the image is out of context.

(Image we used)

These are all images of the the teacher, victim, and the killer. These are effective as they portray that the killer is stalking the teacher which gives an insight of what the horror film 'Torture' is about. The clearer images of the two main characters would be good to use for either our poster or magazine. They would catch the audience's eye and the audience would be able to recognise which film is being advertised.

Final Decisions for Location, Costume, Props and Cast

Location:

My group and I have decided to film part of our teaser trailer in the schools lecture theatre because we feel that the area is appropriate and suited to the 'students' who will be filmed in a classroom situation. The lecture theatre will be used as a minor setting for the trailer, where the students will be filmed as if they are having a lesson. We will filming in this area for part of indoor scenes, aswell as potentially using the indoor sixth form common room area. For our outdoor scenes we will be filming in the school car park and grounds either early in the morning or after school, where the car park would be more or less empty. The car park will be used in the scene where the protaganist believes she is being followed by some one, and repeatedly turns left and round until the antagonist walks across the camera slowly and the fade to black.

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Fourth Team Meeting

We have decided to call our film 'Torture' because we feel that it fits the conventions of the horror genre. We feel it is also original because of our research we have seen that there is no other film available of the same name.

Filming Schedule

For our teaser trailer we have chosen to go with storyboard 2. We will be filming our teaser trailer in our Media lessons on Mondays and Thursdays and also using the media suite in our free time. We are also avaliable to film on Wednesday afternoons and Tuesday mornings.

Second Storyboard Draft

Second Storyboard Draft

Third Team Meeting

For our third team meeting my group and I discussed the setting, props and costume to be used for our horror teaser trailer. We decided upon using the school common room and grounds - in particular the pond area and the centre playground. For our 'victims' we decided that they would be dressed in every day clothes as costumes in order to add realism and verisimilitude to our trailer. The killer will be dressed in a clown outfit because we think that this is particularly typical of ther horror genre and also terrifying.

Investigation Of Props, Location And Cast

Investigation of Props

In investigating props myself and my group chose to photograph weapons that potentially the antagonist could use in order to murder his victims. We chose bricks and knives for props because they would be easily accessible to the antagonist because they are located around the school site. I think that the image of the knives is particularly effective because they look menacing and threatening - something which as a horror trailer the props should portray. The bricks could be used by the 'killer' in order to strike the victim over the head.

Investigation of Location

In order to photograph location my group and I took photographs of various locations around the school that we thought could potentially be used in our teaser trailer. I thought the most effective settings were the ones on the field, where the the trees add shadow and cover which I think would be good in order to set a spooky tone to the trailer. It also would be good to shoot this area at night since it could be replicated and used as a 'woods' when in reality it is not. The fence also adds a sense of entrapment and closure, so that the victim could be shown trying to escape from the 'woods' in the trailer to no avail. The pond setting would also be an effective setting because it could provide a place for the killer to store the 'bodies' of his victims without getting caught. I think this would be a very effective storyline and would add realism to the plot, as it is a typial convention of the horror genre.

Investigation of Cast

For our cast investigation my group and I took a variety of photographs of students and teachers in our school. After we had reviewed our images we decided that to fit in with the conventions of the 'horror' genre we would generally include a younger cast in order to gain the 'slasher' movie feel. Our cast will only include students from our school in order to add verisimilitude to our teaser trailer, and also to save time. The students will mainly be from the sixth form so that it targets a 15+ audience, however there may be a few shots of younger children in the school as extras.

Poster And Magazine Cover Drafts

First Poster Draft

Second Poster Draft

First Magazine Draft

Second Magazine Draft