The Trailer

The Poster

The Magazine Cover

Evaluation Question 1:In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Trailer

Before doing research into similar products I thought it was important we agreed on a synopsis, my group and I liked the idea of having a little girl as the antagonist, having her as the antagonist challenges the stereotype of little girls being innocent or harmless.We based our synopsis around this character.

To create our synopsis we looked at various synopsis that had little girls as the antagonist we looked at the ring , the grudge and let the right one in, the grudge stood out as it had similar concepts to our early concepts, mainly as it was based in house haunted by the girl. I did a character profile of the grudge girl ,This was very helpful as it it enabled me to use and developed her characteristics for our Antagonist (Amy smith).

Comparison of The grudge girl / Amy Smith

. The grudge Girl was previously the victim / Amy smith was also a victim and died due to her parents not being there during the fire.

.Both characters wear a white dress/gown

.The Grudge girl holds a grudge ,therefore she terrorizes anyone in her house/ Amy Smith also holds a similar grudge because of how she died in her house, she cannot accept anyone else living in her house.

.The Grudge girl is sneaky and elusive / Amy Smith is also like this: As you can see in the pictures below

After creating a synopsis and character profile I did a detailed analysis of a few trailers, The grudge trailer was very influential once again, i believe the The grudge 1 trailer really captured the feel I wanted for mine. I liked the way tension was built in this trailer leading to the key shot at the end, to show these tension levels i made a simple graph. We tried using this graph and based our storyboard on it.

The graph above is for the tension levels in The grudge trailer and the one beneath is for the tension levels in our trailer, i think this was very effective.

The overall style we were going for definitely came through, we used the conventions of a psychological horror and adapted them to our storyline, From looking at psychological horror trailers and synopsis we gained knowledge of themes they explored, This was key as it helped us use develop and adapt themes like revenge, fear and mental instability to our trailer.

How is our film a Psychological horror

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We explored various themes in our trailer, like Mental instablity, Revenge and fear. We also tried to create iconography by using the musical ballet box along with the music as Amy Smiths tool to terrorize the inhabitants of the house, we hoped this would be and interesting prop that would stick in peoples mind as it made quite an eerie sound.

We used all the basic forms and conventions in our trailer, like quick shots,High strings to build anticipation and production details but in some ways we challenged conventions of trailers, for example the shots were in chronological order and did give an insight to the story, usually people think it is better to keep it a mystery, but because our story is quite complex I thought it was important we gave a bit of insight into the plot.

POSTER

Our poster adheres to the codes and conventions of posters through the use of production details, use of the title and use of a main image.

Like many other horror film posters it is quite dark not showing to much of the antagonist, I think the simplicity of our image is very effective as it is quite scary and gives a real sense of mystery. I was heavily influenced by The Rings film poster as I like its simplicity and darkness

We used white for the title as a complete contrast to the black this really made the title stand, unconventionally we avoided the use of red in our poster and trailer as we wanted our production to be quite subtle and to scare people without the use of clear violence.

Evaluation Question 2:How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of The trailer, Poster and Magazine cover was quite successful overall. We managed to have a clear style running through these products which I would describe as subtle and based around the idea that 'more is less'. We gave very little away in all production particularly in the poster, this created a sense of mystery and enigma making the audience want to find out more about it.There was very little use of color throughout our products, This was all part of the style we were going for. We always used our Antagonist (Amy Smith) as the focal point of our production work, i think it was important we did so to keep the on going style and to implant her look into peoples head. We also took use of font into account by having the same font for the film title, the 'coming soon' and using the film title on the magazine cover.

It was imperative we created these 3 products and that we had an ongoing style to make it recognizable. The use of 3 products gave the Campaign a lot of weight, This allowed audiences to gain a deeper understanding and gain more of an interest. To attract attention and advertise the campaign we created a facebook group displaying the 3 products, this was also a good tool for feedback, the comments posted were not particularly useful but they create a hype and interest for onlookers. In relation to advertising we uploaded the video on to Youtube but unfortunately we cant upload the poster and magazine onto to it making which makes it a less useful platform.Overall the use of facebook and youtube as advertising platforms has been helpful as it allows our Campaign to be seen globally.

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stage?

How I used media technologies in the construction, research and planning stages and evaluation. on Prezi

Coming soon

This is the image at the end, it says 'coming soon' we chose to keep it simple and tried to make it look sophisticated unlike other films where they will have the full date, I think suits our trailer.

The font is the same one we used for the poster, I think it is important we used details like this through out the publicity campaign to create an overall style.

Defected Films - New Film Production Company

This is the new picture for the our Production company 'Defected Films', As I explained to the group, I think this image is much more suitable for our Trailer as it has a similar style to the rest of our publicity campaign. The twisted pictures one was a bit unsophisticated and too childish in comparison to the rest of our Film Publicity Campaign.

Production Company - Twisted Picz

This is the image my group mate created for the production company, it is called 'Twisted picz'. The word twisted links directly to the horror genre along with the use of black and red we hope people can tell this is a horror production company before they see the trailer.

I personally do not like it because it is tacky, like the of the word picz instead of pictures does not work in a production like ours that would work better in a low budget urban film aimed at 12 year olds.

The Magazine Cover

This is the front of our magazine, We used conventions of horror magazines and used a lot of the knowledge we gained at AS to creater this magazine

Risk Assesment

There are only two occasions when we will have to take safety into account.

• When we take a shot of a house we will have to momentarily stand in the middle of a road, for safety we will wait until there are no cars before filming and we will have two people checking for cars from each side to see if cars are coming.
• We will also have to burn and film a small bundle of paper we will do this in an open space (parking lot) with no people, objects or cars about.
  

Script

SCRIPT

Scene 16:

Jane whispers “There is something very strange happening in this house”

Scene 17:

The Jane says “Did you hear that”

Scene 23:

Jane says to Sebastian in a distressed voice “Who is she? What does she want? “

Scene 24:

Sebastian says to Jane “ We cant live like this.”

Scene 28:

Sebastian says to Jane “Something terrible happened in the house”

The script is short as there is not alot of speaking firstly because it is a trailer and secondly our group have agreed on the idea of less is more, so what you cant hear and what you cant see can be more scary.

Shot list

Here is our detailed shot list, we included the schedule, scene number,shot description, location, character and necessary props it is imperative we have all these details as it will help us film without any confusion and it also works as a checklist.

Task assignments 2

Once again we have had to divide the work ,it is important we do this to make the most of our time.

• Ertan and Gramos are in charge of doing the outdoor shots
  
• I am in charge of filming the shots inside the house
  

Film poster

This is the film poster we have created, we chose this very simple image because it resembles the rest of our publicity campaign, it also gives a clear indication of what kind of horror film it is going to be, the idea of 'scary is what you cant see' definitely comes through in this as it is very dark and simple.

We browsed through Many fonts before choosing this one, and we only chose to use this one in the last minute, I think this is quite suitable as because it is thin and quite spaced out i think this can relate to idea of being abandoned and isolated. The scratching effect can suggest mental instability or being trapped this can closely relate to the girls mental characteristics.

Our fonts

This is a list of the fonts we looked at and why we thought they would be relevant to our work.

This is the first font we chose, we liked the way it wasn't solid and it had bits coming off, but we came to the conclusion that it wasn't the right font for our trailer, Firstly because of the drips they represent blood and our trailer and our idea overall has no blood and gore in it.

The second font we chose was quite good as it was simple and slender giving as sense of isolation and slyness, but we decided it was too simple for our trailer.
This is the font we chose at the end, I think it is perfect because I beleive it represents our Antagonist and our trailer. The idea of isolation and vulnerability comes through the letters being spaced out, the lines coming off look like they have been scratched this could relate to the idea of being trapped this links to the way the girl is trapped in her house during the fire and forever after. The lines coming off can also connote some sort of mental instability as it is not all on solid letter, our character links to this as she is a crazy ghost.

Analyses of film posters

Ertan film poster powerpoint presentation

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Sounds:Diagetic and non-diagetic

this non-copyrighted song above has some very interesting sounds which I believe I can cut up and use.



this is the sound of a musical jewelry box, it is a very important sound as it will act as a catalyst for tension to rise within the trailer.


We have had a lot of trouble finding the appropriate music for our trailer, we have tried using various songs but none seem to work with it, I am hoping that if we use the Musical Ballet box music properly it can be the base sound to our trailer.

Task assignments

Throughout this project we have had to assign different tasks to each other within the group, we did this so we can each focus on one thing to make it as good as possible.

Today we assigned tasks to each group member.

• Ertan had to look at existing Horror film posters.
• Gramos had to look at Magazine front covers.
• And I had to do the storyboard.
  

target audience profile

Above is a URL link to a target audience profile for a psychological horror. I have uploaded this URL because it links to what my group needs to do for our target audience profile for our potential audience and how we can go about writing it.

Our target audience is from the ages of 15 - 30+ as the certificate age of our film we be a 15+ film. we have chosen this age group because our horror production we are creating will be more of a psychological horror therefore we appeal to the older audiences with that aspect of the genre. We appeal to the younger audience because of the sheer horror aspects which most younger audiences look for in horrors to have a sense of fear and fright.

Our film production aims to a rather wide audience as we do not aim the film at any people of a certain class the film will be made for all types of people lower, middle and the ruling class as the film will have intelligence as an aspect because of the fact that its a psychological horror it also fulfills the main concepts of horror films which is to scare the audience.

How is our film a Psychological horror?

How is our film a Psychological horror

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This research and comparison of psychological horrors was very useful, as it will not only confirm what type of film our is but help us use these conventions to improve our trailer.

Amy Smith - Character Profile

We want this evil re-incarnation of Amy Smith to have similar physical and mental characterstics to characters like, the exorcist girl ,The ring girl and the grudge girl.

.The girl is 10 years old

.She is the evil re-incarnation of Amy Smith

.Was very quite in day to day life before she died, this characteristic makes her mysterious

.She is very intelligent, this gives her power.

.She has a lot of anger inside her because her parents where not there for her, she takes this anger out on any family that lives in her house.

.She wears a plain white gown, like the ring girl, I think the simplicity of the costume makes her scary and lifeless.

.Her attachment to the Musical Ballet box and the use of it to taunt the victims show her mental instability.

.She is illusive and only appears to terrorize the inhabitants of her house.

The Grudge Girl

To create our Character I believe it is important we look at similar character in existing films to get inspiration.

A character we have undoubtedly looked in to is the evil girl from ‘The Grudge’ ,Her background is very similar to our Antagonists ( Amy smith) background, she was also killed in her own house and haunts it like our character, Similarly our character (Amy smith) also holds a grudge.I think The Grudge girl has a lot of interesting characteristics we can use and develop. I like the way the evil girl in grudge is quite illusive and sly ,there are examples of this in The Grudge trailer

This shot really gives a sense of her being sly, and I believe we can use make similar shots to show this characteristic.

The Ring Girl

From early on our group particularly like the idea of a young girl being the antagonist as it challenges conventions, stereotypically a small girl would be an innocent victim.When it came to deciding what the girl should look like films like the excorcist, the ring and the grudge instantly came to our mind. The ring was very good at making a small girl look spine chillingly scary, so we decided to take elements from her and incorporate them into our antagonist. We looked at things like her costume and her behaviour.

The first picture shows the ring girl and the second one is our Antogonist there is a clear resemblance between the two characters, the ring analysis has been very helpful in terms of creating our characters look.

The Abandoned - Choosing a Title

We have decided to call our film 'The Abandoned'. We have chosen this name because it directly relates to the narrative and it can also give audiences insight into the film. We hope this insight through the title can draw audiences in. The abandoned also relates to the idea of isolation, vulnerability and therefore fear these are all key concepts and themes which are very common in horror films, examples of these concepts can be seen in films such as 'The Blair Witch Project' where they are lost in a forest of the isolation of 'The ring' girl in the tape.

I think it was important we kept the title simple and that we started it with 'The...' as it correlates with style of our film and references to the films that influenced our like

Synopsis for "The Abondoned"

Synopsis for ‘The Abandoned’

Mr .George Smith and Janet Smith are living a perfectly normal life with their 10 year old daughter, Amy Smith. Everything is going well for them, with the parents enjoying a healthy relationship, a good lifestyle with both of them in a full time job which gives them both financial and social benefits. They have been living together in the house for 13 years in the city which they have spent a long time making as homely as possible both for themselves and for their daughter. One 16/10/1999 an unfortunate sequence of events led to the house catching fire, Sadly the parents were out as they break free from the monotony of the week by going out for dinner, leaving Amy alone in the house. Later that night Amy awakes to the smell of burning smoke. Looking around wide eyed she sees her room enveloped by dark smoke. Coughing as she leaves her room Amy notices there is no escape, at this moment a powerful rage takes over Amy, how could her parents abandon her?. Later that evening the fire brigade manage to pull Amy’s body out from the burning building, her face was emotionless and her eyes were still wide open. 16/10/2010 a young couple buy the old Smith residence, believeing it was the place to raise their unborn child, little did they know about the events that took place at the house 11 years ago. The young couple Jane and sebastien will have to withstand the eerie things that ocurr in the this house, they are physically and mentally terrorized by the evil re-incarnation of Amy smith.

The Grudge synopsis

The Grudge describes a curse that is born when someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage or extreme sorrow (see Onryō). The curse gathers in the place where that person died. Those who encounter this murderous supernatural force die and the curse is reborn repeatedly, passed from victim to victim in an endless, growing chain of horror.

Trailer Analysis The Grudge

TRAILER ANALYSIS : THE GRUDGE


.The trailer starts by showing a text, it says ‘Columbia pictures’ , all trailers have this to show who produces it, but in this case it will also interest an audience as it is a renown film production company.

.The first few short shots are of city and house, this shows the audience the environment where the film will be set,Non-Diagetic eerie sirens fade in this creates a tense atmosphere and instantly makes it clear to the audience that it is a horror movie.

.The trailer has short sentances that fade in throughout giving the audience insight into the narrative.

.The first sentance is followed by a series of very fast shots containing close ups of a scary girls face. At this point the non-diagetic sounds heighten the atmosphere with high pitched strings and sound of a woman in distress

. A voice over is then used, it is the main characters voice, she says short sentences giving us an insight to the storyline. The speed of the shots slow down while she is speaking.The eerie sirens are used when the trailer slows down.

.After another written sentence fades in the shots suddenly speed up again ,showing more scary imagery along with the the strings an sounds of malfunctioning electronics.

.Another sentances fades in and the shots slow down again, from here on the shots speeds alternate from slow to fast shots,the non-diagetic sound of voices and strings build up by becoming more high pitched, this alternation of shots combined with the sound building up creates alot of tension and anticipation.

. This build leads to to the scariest shot in the trailer.

I made this to show the tension levels in the trailer and to show how the builds up are effective, i believe i can learn from this and use this to structure my trailer.

There were some very nice editing techniques, the use of making the screen flash black a couple times before showing the quick scary shots, shocks and confuses the audience.

First/Basic Concepts

This is a task that we did in class as a group. The point of the task was to understand what we need to research to have a better understanding for our trailer. It was also to string ideas together for our trailer.

Common Horror Themes / Plotlines

SLASHER

The most common/popular style of horror film is probably slasher. These films usually have a lot of blood and gore involved, with an emphasis on killing scenes. The antagonist will usually have an iconic and distinctive look ,usually with a mask and particular weapon. Examples of this are The 'Scream' mask and the chainsaw 'In The Texas chainsaw massacre'. PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

Psychological Horrors are generally based on a characters fear and usually has a more complex plotline. They are more subtle and contain less physical harm. Films like The Ring and The Others would come under this style.
TORTURE HORROR
This type of horror is usually very Gorey as the writer must think up unusual ways to kill someone . The films can some times consist of a game created by some sick person. The characters in the game must go through tests which they will usually never win leading to their death. Examples of this would be Resident Evil and Saw.

Conventions of Film Trailers

• Trailers are short and made up short scenes and shots, this builds anticipation and makes the film look exciting.
• It has key elements like the name of the Production Company and release date, this fulfills an audiences expectation and helps them understand what kind of film it is.
• It is important that the audience can instantly recognize the genre of the film through the trailer, horror trailers are easy to recognize through the imagery and sound.
• Trailers usually consist of key shots and scenes in a movie, this makes the trailer more exciting and attractive to audiences.
  

A Meeting

At the end of the summer term we were asked to film a short scene of a meeting, our one was a scene of friends meeting up to play football.

We used an establishing shot and a pan to show where our scene would take place.

There was good use of continuity editing throughout , especially when the characters kicked the ball. This good use of continuity editing made the video easy to understand and helped it unfold.

There are definitely things we have to improve on like range of shot types used and we should have developed a better script.

Prezi AS to A2

AS Evaluation on Prezi

Pete Frasier

On the first lesson back from our study leave Pete Frasier came in, We had a discussion about AS and the skills we learnt. He then went on to explain what skills we would use in A2 and how we should go about the year.

In A2 we have been asked to create a film poster and a trailer for a slasher horror movie, this blog will track the process', activities and planning leading up to the final product.