Research & Planning

Here I will upload all my Research and Planning I have done in order to develop my knowledge in order to make my trailer I will spit this into differernt sections with thier title's.

Research & Planning - Trailer Analysis

The Goods
• We see the name of the film at the end of the trailer this is because it shows the clips of the film and leaves the names till last as it usually has the release date with it.
• We are told who is starring in the film as it might decide people to watch the movie or not as some people watch the film because of who stars in it.
• We see the best comedy clips of the film, which highlight to the audience it’s going to be comical movie throughout, this clearly indicate the specific audience that who is going to watch the movie.
• The music in the trailer is symphony orchestra which senses seriousness in the film, shows the characters intentions are serious and not a joke, with the mix of comedy, this could be seen as a convention of comedy movies.
• The voiceover has a deep and serious voice, this could be because of the theme of the movie and the intentions of the characters, which shows the movie is a comedy but the actions that are dealt with are serious.
• The trailer show 5 seconds maximum snippets of the best funny bits of the film with the main characters, this is what attracts the viewers to go and see the movie, this doesn’t give away the story line but it allows viewers to have an slight understanding of what the film is about.
• The information that we are given in the last frame of the trailer is the release date in the middle of the frame in white bold writing this is a clear indication of a convention of a trailer. Also on the bottom of the screen we can see other information that can will relates to the film and publicity campaign, under the release date there is the main website to the movie. Other information included in the last frame is the restrictions to the movie where it points out what type of language and imagery there is to point out what audience are restricted to go and watch the movie.
• Trailer is more effective in me wanting to go and see the movie because it allows moving image to be shown in order to get the intentions across and also allows me to see if it’s a movie I would like to go and see by watching small snippets that are put together from the movie.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/thegoods/

The Final Destination
• We are told the name of the film at the end of the trailer, this is because it points out a trailer’s conventions and it is together with the release date.
• The trailer doesn’t say who is starring in the movie this could be due to the actors are new and there isn’t a star system to point out to the audience the specific actors playing the roles in the movie.
• The actions we see in the film are crashes, burning fire, death, shattered action such as glass breaking, etc.
• The music gives us a clue to this trailer being about life and death, this is with the fast pace of the racing cars zooming past, the sharp sounds and the fast drum beats in the music connotes panic and death.
• The is no voiceover in the trailer this is because there are previous sequels of the movie so the movie doesn’t need introducing once again, the dialogue on the trailer outlines the storyline the film this effect gives us a sense of realism.
• The speed of the trailer is fast snippets of the best bits of the movie; this is to only get viewer attentions. Fast pace clips allows viewers to be stuck to their seats as it shows clips from different scenes of the film, whereas from the film they seem longer clips. The clips on the trailer aren’t the same all the way through the film as shorter clips are part of the film, whereas where in the trailer there is dialogue the clips seem to be longer.
• The name of the film and the release date are given in the end of the trailer as well as the films website for the publicity campaign, and the production company that produced the film.
• Trailer is more effective in making me wanting to go and see the movie because it shows small snippets of the film and the combination of imagery and sound is more effective and grabs my attention more.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/thefinaldestination/

Terminator 4
• We are told the name of the film at the end of the trailer; this is because it points out a trailer’s conventions and it indicates together with the release time but doesn’t give a specific date.
• We are told who is starring in the film after we see each of the actors on the screen for the first time, they have done this to show that these are really popular actors and they are in this movie whereas they haven’t been in the last 3 Terminator movies.
• The action we see from the film in the teaser trailer is machinery’s attacking, explosions, and escapes, the actions is shown through the future and as action as they screen is fuzzy to connote that this isn’t the present time, also the fuzziness could connote the final Terminator movie as its fuzzy which shows that the Terminator is terminated.
• The music in the background are dramatic drums this gives us an indication to that this movie is going to be a action adventure based movie, as the drum are loud and carried on repeatedly near the end of the trailer and fades out the fade could connote the end.
• The voiceover of this trailer is the main character himself telling the audience his journey with the terminator, this creates a sense of his journey and realism as he himself is telling the story.
• The speed of the clips in this case really quick in the trailer as there is a lot of action so the fast clips make this more effective with the action of escapes, explosions, and adventure.
• The information we are given in the very last frame of the film is the release time as a specific date isn’t given, and the marketing campaign website which is the films website.
• Trailer is more effective in me wanting to go and see the movie because it allows moving image to be shown in order to get the story of what the movies is about and it also indicated in this case that this could be the last Terminator movie as near the end it says ‘THE END BEGIN’S’ whereas the poster wouldn’t have pointed that out to me.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/terminatorsalvation/large.html


Here I have learnt something which I didn’t realise before about the difference between a trailer and a teaser trailer, which is that trailers come out when the date of the release is nearby and always has the specific date of when the film is to be released whereas a teaser trailer is released more well before the film is planned to be released sometimes even a year or over. I have also learnt that in teaser trailers the footage that gets released isn’t actually part of the film. An example of this which I have seen is Spiderman 3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-r7qymfa0Q

Research & Planning - Todorov’s Narrative Structure

The conventional narrative structure pointed out by Todorov as a rule has five stages though this can be broken down to three stages; a beginning (state of equilibrium), middle (disruption to the equilibrium) and end (reinstate the equilibrium).
Equilibrium – it’s simply just a state of balance, normality in which the characters find themselves at the beginning.

Below is Todorov conventional narrative structure complete with five stages:

Stage 1
Equilibrium – A state of equilibrium is defined.

Stage 2
Problem introduced – Disruption to the equilibrium by some action or crisis.

Stage 3
Recognition of the problem – The Character(s) recognition that there has been a disruption, setting goals to resolve problem.

Stage 4
Conflict – The Character(s) attempt to repair the disruption, obstacles need to be overcome to restore order.

Stage 5
Resolution – Reinstatement to the equilibrium. Situation is resolved, a conclusion is announced.

Research & Planning - Horror Movie Setting - Focus Group

Here I have asked a few of my friends and relatives what they think about horror movies setting and to highlight one of their favourite scene/setting in a horror film.

Me: I’ve always like a good setting locations films in horror films because it gets the mood right for it along with the music. Here are some of my favourite scene settings:

Friday the 13th (1980) - the scene on the lake towards nightfall when Kevin Bacon and his character girlfriend are sitting by the lake and she is telling him about the nightmare dream she had as a kid and then it shows the lake and the skyline going kind of orange, that scene seemed very effective to me.

Halloween 4 - the opening scenes with titles and it shows barns and scarecrows and pumpkins, etc, this scene really sets the setting and time, as soon as the film starts.

What are some of your favourite setting scenes in horror films?
___________________________________________________

Ami: There’s a lot of different setting once you start thinking about them. One of my favourite is "Jaws" the beginning scene swimming in the ocean at night as it challenges’ the conventions of a horror in some sense that ‘Has anyone really swam in the ocean at night for real?’ The only thing you will usually see at night in the water is the open water, sea life, ships/boats, etc. The thought of swimming in the night in really freaks me out.

Hiren: Friday the 13th: Part 6: In the beginning were it gives you that gothic feeling, where the fog goes through the lake and woods with the full moon and with the wolf on the road.

Jennifer: Freddy vs. Jason: At the end where there’s a scene with big clouds and Jason comes out of the water, this has a kind of heavenly feel to it.

Casey: The fall of the House of Usher: In beginning shows view going through the forest with some fog and has a great gothic feeling to it.

Kris: Vamp: when it gets dark and the business lights light up the night gives a good scene shot.

Lara: Near Dark: where the gang walks up a hill in the night to the bar to test Caleb for his last chance. This is where Caleb and Mae walking down the street in the dark and a truck start circling around them.

Kris: A few additions:
28 Days Later: abandoned London, also the fields and ruins.

Shining: the halls, especially the long shot of the hall, empty, then with live twins, then dead twins.

Suspiria: the big open ground where the blind guy gets blind sighted by his dog.

Halloween (1978): although the film was made in California the looks of the small fictional town of Haddonfield was really cool.

Darren: The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre: with the sunset in the background as leatherface is spinning around at the end. That's frameable.

I definitely agree about Halloween 4 at the beginning....it’s fantastic.

Ash: One of my favourite scenes is the innocence of Haddonfield streets in the Fall, with Michael Myers A.K.A the shape looming in the scenes.

Northern Iraq in the opening of the Exorcist: in 1973 this scene delivered a whole new, different and seemingly strange culture to the western world enhancing our fears and the feeling of the unknown.


The focus group has lead me to find out what the audience enjoy in a horror scene, or order for it to be effective for the audience, this information will help me out in order to decide my setting and scenery for my movie that I will choose. This information has lead me to find out dark, and isolated areas are the most effective in a horror movie, this is because darkness and isolation combined together lead to a psychological thought of being stranded in an unknown area. This information has lead me for my main location to be in a dark isolated area.

Research & Planning - Conventions of Trailer

A trailer is seen as a mini narrative as is outline the story in a short sequence of shots in order to grab the audience attention to the film in order for them to go and watch it.

In order to grab the audience’s attention it has to select the best bits of the movie to put together in order to give the audience a glimpse of the movie and what is expected in it.

One liner dialogue is usually in the scenes so too much of the film isn’t given away, especially in horrors as actions are important rather than dialogue, in horror trailers in any there is very little dialogue or none at all.

The mask of the killer is used in some sense to create atmosphere/pace/and tempo as the mask is seen as scary and it being on somebody’s face to cover their identity signifies that they are here to commit a sin, so the mask gives the whole trailer its atmosphere as well as the setting, pace as the clips can’t be too short or too long to create a sense of realism.

Showcasing the stars is an important part of a trailer as it brings audience attention as some people might go to watch a film because their favourite actor/actress is starring in it. This also introduces the stars as some people might have not heard of them before and is the first time they are hearing of them.

Highlighting the release date is the most important aspect of a trailer as it points out when the film is releasing in cinemas as without this information the audience wouldn’t know when the film is releasing and wouldn’t know when to go to watch it.
Dramatic camera angles are used to highlight the action and setting, this is used in different shots to connote each shot, for each example when the killer appears in the scene a low angle can be used to show that danger is appearing this angle connotes that he is in power.

Voiceover is used to tell story if the there isn’t as much speech and also if the storyline isn’t clear through the action.

The credits and text show who has been part of the making of the film this is another important aspect of a trailer as this can be another reason for why people might want to go to watch the film for example, the director might be highlighted this could drive people forward to go and watch as they might have seen a previous film made by that director and want to see their upcoming film/s.

Production details highlighted to show which company is behind the budget of the film and to give an brand identity to the films name.

Research & Planning - Questionnaire

Research & Planning - Title Research

The title research has lead me to see the commonalities in typography of a few well known movies, in this research I have found out that the films which refer to a certain day in the calendar where some sort of bad luck could occur, the font either red or has some sort of shade of red in the font, this could represent in the bad luck and blood, due to our film being on a specific day which is 1st April, we will make our font colour red to follow this commonality. An example of this is shown on Halloween, and Friday the 13th.

Research & Planning - Killer Research

Research & Planning - Genre

Research & Planning - Commonalities of Killers in Slasher Horror

Killers have a lot in common, with their characteristics, looks and archetypal. This is shown through their actions, clothing, and movements. The main characteristic of a killer that is seen in every trailer is they are dirty, a killer is never shown that they are clean, as their clothes are scruffy, and image is demented and unclean in general. Another popular commonalities they have is that the all wear masks in order to hide their identity and make their looks terrifying giving warning that they are about to create a sin. The killers are all seen to have some sort of weapon on them to use to make their kills; popular weapons are seen as guns, knives, machetes, and chainsaws. These killers are seen as they have risen from the dead and seem careless, and have no denial of their own actions.

I have researched into the commonalities that the killers hold in slasher horrors and have learnt several important points that I will highlight out into bullet points to help me with my trailer.

· Personality are masked and hidden this keeping humanity unseen in the killers mind or victim
· Lack or disorientation of human qualities
· Choice of weapons suggest sadistic nature of killer
· Costume codes show lack of awareness of image and convey isolation from society
· Body language suggests overriding resilience and strength

Researching and discovering the points above have helped me to know more about the image that I will need my killer to be in order to match them commonalities.

Research & Planning - Film Publicity

A publicity stunt is another form of advertising a film/star, etc, in order for the public to have notice about the film being publicized. Publicity stunt is another form of advertising rather than the usual posters, interviews, etc. Example of this could be an Inflatable Arnold Schwarzenegger in Leister Square.

The location where publicity stunt will appear are in general places where there are huge volumes of the public, such as busy locations, on general media, where an expected visit is being made by star of related film, e.g. If Arnold Schwarzenegger came to watch the release of his film Terminator in cinema a publicity stunt will be found. A typical stunt is typical ways of advertising a movie in order to get publicity such as posters, celebrity interviews, which persuade you to go and watch a film at your nearest cinema. Publicity stunts are hyped up as they are different forms of publicizing a movie in order to persuade audiences to go and watch it rather than typical stunts.

Merchandising allows to create an identification with the theme of the film or the key marketing directions. They are known as ‘nifty bribes’ that companies use for competition to promote the latest blockbuster. They use this method to make the brand identity to stand out as much as possible.

A blockbuster movie denotes a very popular and successful production. An example of a blockbuster movie is Batman: The Dark Knight this is the biggest blockbuster of 2008 with it being one of the biggest selling movies on cinemas. Film companies will benefit from the success of a blockbuster as the director and stars will have more recognition, so next film a consumer watches could be because of the success of the directors/stars last film. But the biggest benefit is from the profits they make from blockbusters could exceed more than 50% at what other films can make from profits.

Taglines are very important in selling a movie as they outline the genre of the movie and its outlines what the movie is about in a very short line in the form of a tag. For example the movie ‘Halloween’ has the tagline ‘The trick is to stay alive’ this tagline indicates to us that it’s a horror, and there will be a lot of blood and gore. The tagline is a driven point to audiences going to watch a movie.

Storyboarding

Here is the storyboarding we did as a group to decide the shot that we needed in our trailer, you will find that we have slightly changed some the frames around, this was done during the editing process as some shots went well together with others so we changed them around a bit.

Stages of Production

The first stage of the process of making our horror trailer I am my group had to sit down and decide what we are going to do for our trailer, in order to do this we had to find out the decide the basis of our story and according to that we had to write up a synopsis to describe what the film is about in a short structure to get the audience attracted to the movie by reading the synopsis, this has to be descriptive and give a brief outline to the movie in order to attract audience.

In order to decide what our story is going to be about me and my group gathered several ideas and chose the best one to go along with, according to this we then had to draw up a storyboard for the trailer according to the shots we are going to shoot for the trailer. This storyboard highlights what props we will need for each shot, the setting/location, which characters are in what shot, and the editing sequence. With the storyboard highlighting this information this makes it easier for the filming and editing process afterwards as the information is already there for us to follow. Storyboarding made our filming process more easier as we didn’t have to made decisions while filming but our storyboard acted as a guide to show us what to do from beforehand planning which made it much more easier than if we didn’t, for example: it would of been like going somewhere where you don’t know, whereas if you have planned it out before you would have a checked on a map how to get there.

The stage after storyboarding was to go out and film the trailer; here we had to shoot all of our video footage several time so that we can get several shots of the same footage encase there is something wrong with any of the other footage and also so we can select the best footage to go in the trailer. For the setting of our trailer we found a dark place under the school also known as ‘The Void’ that we decided to shoot our trailer. In order to shoot there we had to give a advance notice to the staff and a date and a time to when we want to shoot as we needed to be supervised for health and safety reasons.

During the filming process there was a few downs, this was due to filming in ‘The Void’ there was a lot of rubbish including old planks of woods, electrical, boxes, PC monitors, etc, down there so we had to be careful of what and where we were going as it was very big with loads of different rooms. Our filming was difficult to process as the floor wasn’t all lined and was made of mud gone hard so it was all lumpy. Because of the amount of rubbish it made some of our shot more difficult to film (e.g. escaping shots) than it already was as it would get in the way and made the room darker, so the lighting would make the room darker than it already was, as we only had the limited lighting that was already down there.

After filming the trailer we had to upload the footage straight onto the editing software (iMovie) that we needed to use to edit the video. Here after we uploaded the footage we had to go through it and check if we were satisfied with it and if there were any problems with footage such as pixilation. In some cases these problems occurred and in order to fix them we had to go out and film those shots again until the problem was resolved.

After uploading all of our footage we had to find the shots we need for the trailer and delete all the unwanted shots that we don’t need, this will eliminate all the unwanted shots so it was easier to know what I was working with. I then had to start arranging the shots in order of the storyboard and trimming them down to size so each shot was quick in order to keep the audience interested and engaged.

These shots will have to be able to flow as a short story by putting the shots in order and cutting them down with the best bits of each shot to keep the audiences interest still intact with the trailer being within 30 – 60 seconds frame.

After cutting down the footage for the first time I was engaged to the process of and managed to cut down 6 minutes of footage down to 1:20 minutes which was a huge step as it was hard to choose which clips to keep and which not to, as to film it took careful consideration and planning and to cut it down seemed hard as we have filmed it several times to get the footage right. Getting the footage down to 1:20 minutes was a good start but as it’s a teaser trailer we are filming for it had to be between 30 – 60 seconds in order to flow with the convention a teaser trailer.

Original Images

Marketing Campaign - Magazine Cover

As part of the trailer we were told to create marketing campaigns that goes with our trailer which we had to create a magazine cover and a film poster in order to market our new, to be released movie. In order to create the magazine we had to create a flat plan of what we were going to do on the magazine in order to stick to plans, this flat plan includes the picture that we were going to use, the information that we are going to include on it, and the positions of the features on the page. The magazine cover that we created has all the conventions that are needed in order to attract audience’s attention in order for them to see the magazine and buy it off the shelf.

Using Adobe Photoshop, me and my group members uploaded the image that we have taken for our magazine and started to adjust the brightness in order to make it darker as it was quiet bright when we took the picture, adjusting the brightness to a lower level gave us a more darker scenery to create a scary and mysterious setting.

We then went onto editing the actual image; here we added blurs to blur out some of the background as it gives the feeling of enigma and the feeling of a horror theme as you don’t know what’s going on the background, this connects to our trailer as the psychopath follows the girl without her knowing in order to get his revenge.

We then adjusted the hue/saturation to adjust the colour we decided to do this and make the image into one main colour and a brighter colour to show the image and to create realism. The two colour tone image we have gone for also connects to our trailer as our main setting is in ‘The Void’ and there aren’t many things there which means there is hardly any colour, its mainly dark so there is a main shade (in this case black of the darkness) then a lighter colour to highlight the other props in the room.

Later on after we have finished editing the image we added all the features and information needed for the magazine this included all the titles of what’s included in the magazine, the release date, issue number, and a barcode, to highlight the conventions of a magazine.

After we had finished designing and implementing the magazine we had to make an initial decision on how much the magazine should be priced according to other film magazines, after careful consideration we decided to price the magazine with a competitive and physiological pricing strategy at £2.59, as this the prices would compete with other similar magazines.

- Magazine Cover -

- Flat Plan -

Marketing Campaign - Poster

Another part of our trailer we were told to create a film poster for our marketing campaign in order to market our movie and raise awareness for our upcoming movie. In order to create the poster we had to go through the same stages of what how we created the magazine cover, first of all we had flat plan our idea, this flat plan includes information such as the picture that we were going to use, the information that we are going to include on it (in this case the stars that are starring in the movie and production company).

Using Adobe Photoshop, me and my group uploaded the picture that we wanted to use and started editing it according to what we decided in the flat plan. First of all just like on the magazine cover we got the image and adjusted the brightness to a low level to give the picture less light, and give the picture a dark scenery which will give the basic look of a horror poster with the dark shades of colours. We then immediately started editing the image, just like on the magazine we adjusted the hue/saturation to give the picture two colours as it reflects to our actual trailer which has only a few colours in the setting as it’s in an isolated area. We also added a blur to some the background of the poster as it has an effect of that what’s going on around you isn’t always noticeable, this relates to a main theme of our movie as April doesn’t know that a psychopath lives next door to her and that he is out there to get his revenge.

We then created our title to go on the poster, to do this we didn’t use Adobe Photoshop as there aren’t many selections of fonts so instead we used a external site to create our font as they have a huge database full of different types of fonts which can be downloaded and used with Photoshop to create the title wanted with the selected downloaded font and then edited.

After doing the font we repeated the same stage for all the rest of the information on the page such as release date, production details, stars information, and the tagline.

This poster will allow the film to be marketed to the public by raising awareness of the film is to come, to market the movie to as many people as possible.

- Flat Plan -

Here above you can see the origional flat plan we did for our poster, we changed the poster completely as we decided of a better image framing which will be more effective to our movie.

Marketing Campaign - Facbook Page

I have created a Facebook page for my film ‘April Fall’s’ in order to raise awareness in order to get people noticing through a popular viral marketing method. Viral marketing is now the leader in advertising in order to raise awareness, with technology growing fast nowadays and people having more online interactions with own accounts to several socialising sites, e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

I have chosen to create a page on Facebook for my film as it’s one of the most famous socialising sites in the world with over 300 million registered users, with users spending more than 8 million minutes that are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide).

http://www.facebook.com/pages/April-Falls/181290319711?ref=ts

Soundtrack

- music I created with the sound editing software was changed -

- Instead I went to http://freeplaymusic.com/ and downloaded my music from there which was more effective -

The music production took place using Adobe Photoshop 3.0, records the music and adds layered effects, mix, and compile and edit the soundtrack. The music was recorded through a keyboard which connected to an output port on my PC which fed through the sound in order for it to interact with the software and record the sound.

I then changed the music instead and used a non copyrighted music from a site which I downloaded, to be more effectiveness for our video.

Other Skills that I Developed

Other skill that I learnt were remembering and re-learning how to use shortcuts on the Mac computer, as I already knew how to use shortcuts but as I didn’t use them for a long period of time forgot. In my case I needed to re-learn these shortcuts as I tend to use a lot of shortcuts instead of using the cursor. I have stated below some of the basic shortcuts that I have learnt how to use on a Mac:

Description Keyboard shortcut
Empty Trash Shift-Command-Delete
Open Command - O
Save Command - S
Print Command - P
Undo Command - Z
Cut Command - X
Copy Command - C
Paste Command - V

Overall I am happy with my trailer that I have created as it required a lot of hard work with planning being the aspect of success, me and my group did have a few problems through the process of filming the trailer but by being well planned and organised we got through ok in the end as we knew what we were doing.