Joshua Alderson Podcast Evaluation Question 4

Blake Kidney Podcast Evaluation Question 3

Leandro Hernandez Podcast Evaluation Question 2

Tyrone Plange Podcast Evaluation Question 1

Link to After Hours Trailer

Here is a link to my groups trailer for our film 'After Hours'. We thought that posting our trailer on Youtube would be a great way to gain feedback from people all across the world and of different ages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVAnDO-haxI

I decided to put my trailer onto the social site Youtube as it was a way of obtaining feedback from a wide age range of people as well as seeing if we were hitting our target audience of teenagers/young 20s who like the genre of horror.

Promotional Materials - Final Poster and Magazine Cover

Here are the Final Promotional Materials that were produced to go with the trailer:

Magazine Cover

Poster

Props and Costumes list

Here is a list of props and costumes that were used during the filming of our trailer:

• 3 prop knives



• 3 Black hooded jacktes (for the villians)



• 3 Black jeans



• 3 pairs of black boots or trainers



• Fake blood

Why where they needed?

All the props and costumes listed are important to the mise en scene of our trailer and also contribute to the generic codes and conventions of horror. Knives are one of the most iconic symbols used in horror films and trailers, especially the slasher/supernatural films, most iconically 'Scream', 'Jason' and 'Halloween' which all revolve around blades or axes. Considering our trailer is going to be a teen slasher, we felt that the prop knives were best effective to use. The way the villians are dressed, which is in black urban gear, add to the realism factor that we were trying to produce when creating our film trailer. The colour black symbolizes darkness and mystery within the person wearing the colour, so once again, it ties in with the mise en scene and codes and conventions used in the genre. Finally the fake blood was used so that in the viewers mind, the villians could have already killed someone and likes to leave the blood on the weapon to create more fear in the person he is trying to kill, but the blood also creates confusion as well, which again add to the realism we were trying to create.

Magazine and Poster Research

Here are some images of the research I did for the Magazine Cover and the Poster my group need to create. When researching, we were paying attention to colour, types of fonts and kinds of images used in the genre of horror to target their specified audience.

Magazine Research

Poster Research

Promotional Materials - Magazine Designs

Another promotional material that the group had to create was a magazine cover, making sure that it tied in with the poster and trailer we have produced.

Blueprint 1

Blueprint 2

Blueprint 3

Blueprint 4

Blueprint 5

Blueprint 6

Blueprint 7

Our group will be taking ideas from each of these magazines and then making our own.

Promotional Materials - Poster Design

After we finished the editing of our trailer, we decided to move onto the creation of our poster as 1 part of the groups promotional materials. When desgining the poster, we had to consider making sure that it tied in with the fonts and colours we used in our trailer, as well as the generic codes and conventions of horror, possibly using some blood, dark colours, low lighting and more.

After finding the image we were going to use, we ended up with these designs:

Portrait version

Landscape version

Final Stages of editing

Today, we made the final tweaks to our trailer, deciding what sounds we were going to use, making sure everything tied in with the generic codes and conventions on the genre of horror and making any slight changes we could make from feedback we were given.

Possible Music to use throughout our Trailer

Here is a list of possible music to use throughout our trailer. When selecting what music to use, we wanted to keep in with the conventions of horror, with their music normally including strings or death growls or aggressive singing or screaming as the content.
Here is what we came up with:

• Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit


• Slipknot - Dead Memories


• Slipknot - Psychosocial


• Slipknot - Before I Forget


• Slipknot - Duality


• DMX - What's My Name


• Korn - Freak On A Leash


• System Of A Down - Chop Suey


• Evanescence - Going Under


• Evanescence - Bring Me To Life

Possible Camera Shots and Movements to use

OTS (Over The Shoulder shot)

Looking from behind a person at a subject.

CU (Close Up)

A certain part or feature is shown on the frame. But nothing beyond seeing the full face or full object.

Cut In
Shows another part of a subject in detail.

ECU (Extreme Close Up)

Just like a close up, but in more details where specific parts are shown.

EWS (Extreme Wide shot)Also known as an establishing shot which can set the scene.

MCU (Medium Close Up)

Half way between a Mid shot and a Close Up.

MS (Mid shot)

Shows some part of the subject, in more detail.

POV (Point Of View shot)

Shows something from the subjects perspective.

VWS (Very Wide shot)

The subject is barely visible, with emphasis being on the environment mainly.

Weather shot

The subject is only the weather, used for background images etc.

WS (Wide shot)

The subject takes up the full frame or as much as possible that is comfortable.

Every shot here is something my group considered when it came to filming our trailer.

Trailer and Promotional Materials Schedule

Saturday 19th February - Filming trailer.

What took place on the day:

• Waking up late.


• Rushing to get to school.


• Browsing the internet.


• Protagonist falling asleep.

Monday 21st February - Filming trailer.

What took place on the day:

• Protagonist tries to find people, but notices eerie stuff start to happen.


• Hiding behind doors and stairs.


• Shots of the killers and their weapons.


• A shot of the killers chasing the protagonist.


• A shot of the killers together looking for the protagonist (who is hiding behind a wall)


• He tries to run away.


• Protagonist stumbling on the stairs.

Tuesday 22nd Febraury - Filming trailer.

What took place on the day:

• The group obtained pictures from a party our protagonist had attended and then pieced them together.

Wednesday 23rd February - Editing.

What took place on the day:

• The group came up with ideas for the final editing of the trailer.

Friday 25th February - Poster Planning.

What took place that day:

• Did some research by looking at the codes and conventions horror posters use.


• Created some potential poster blue prints.

Storyboard Ideas for the Film Trailer

The point in producing a storyboard (which is constructed before a film is even shot) is to help out directors and cinematographers spot potential problems that could occur during the filming process. A storyboard is never the full film drawn out, it is only a brief outline of major parts of a film or trailer.

This is the 1st storyboard idea that our group came up with.

This is the 2nd storyboard idea that we came up with.

After some talk with the group, we all decided to go with the 2nd idea.

Potential Locations

Here are some potential locations we considered when filming our trailer:

1. My backyard


2. Royston Field (near Penge Sainsburys)


3. Kelsey Park Sports College/Harvington Woods

The locations we decided on are very important to the production process. All of them have an element of absence and are rather large, hence why we want to use the locations for our trailer. Enhancing the feeling of absence is going to be done with the use of lighting, mise en scene, edits, sound, camera shots and more. The use of edits will be fast and along with the music, will help to build up the tension, making things tense all the time.

Change from Original Idea

After gaining some feedback on our current progress, we decided to change our current idea a bit by getting rid of a few scenes and adding some much better scenes into our trailer. We decided to do this to make sure that we were hitting our primary target audience of teenagers/young 20s. So we went with this:

1. Random flashes of moments in the film. - Start


2. Flashback of a party scene with the main protagonist.


3. Shots of empty rooms and corridors.


4. Protagonist wakes up in from of a computer in an empty room.


5. He gets up and tries to find people (flash of him running in a forest)


6. He looks around the room he's in to find no-one (flash of the killers running)


7. He looks up a set of stairs to see if it's safe for him to be there.


8. Protagonist walks through a corridor (flash of him running down a hill)


9. He tries to open a door but fails.


10. He runs through a corridor with flickering lights (flash of him hiding in a room and then being chased upstairs)


11. Quick flashes of the protagonist being chased.


12. The killers running past the protagonist in the forest (flash of a blade running against a wall)


13. Quick close up flashes on specific parts of the body or of a blade.


14. A killer looking for the protagonist in the forest (quick flash)


15. The protagonist stops (we don't know why)


16. Title of the film is shown - Finish
    

The group thought our new idea fitted in more with Todorov's narrative theory of equilibrium (equilibrium - disruption - recognition - action - new equilibrium) Another theory my group are using is Propps where there are up to 8 different types of characters seen in a film, which our trailer includes at least 2 of.

Change of program for editing

Originally we was using Final Cut Pro to edit all of our footage, but our group encountered a lot of problems with the program, even though I have experience with using the program before. Due to all the problems we encountered with the program, we decided to find another piece of editing software to edit all of our footage with. In the end, we decided to use Adobe Premiere Elements to create our trailer.

Main Task - The Steps of our Film Trailer

As a group, well all came together to decide what our trailer was going to contain, trying to make sure that the story isn't revealed whilst watching the trailer, and trying to not make sure we produced a film, but actually a trailer to make our target audience of teenagers/young 20s want to actually watch the film (if it were produced) So we thought we would go with this as our original idea, playing on our research of teen horror films:

1. Drinking and ends up passing out (flashback footage shown) - Start.



2. Main protagonist wakes up in the morning with a slight hangover.



3. Sees the time and rushes to get ready for school.



4. Main protagonist runs to school.



5. He walks into a classroom really late.



6. Friend asks why the protagonist is late (flashback of the party scene occurs)



7. Protagonist falls asleep on the computer.



8. Protagonist wakes up to an empty classroom.



9. He goes around the school but notices killers/villains are blocking his path.



10. He tries to hide from the killers behind staircases and doors.



11. The killers notice the protagonist because of a sound he makes.



12. He tries to escape from the killers - End.

Practice - Induction Task

After learning all the conventions that would be needed to create a trailer of my own, I was put into a group to produce a trailer from the film 'The Omen' which we was watched during 2 of our lessons (see poster to the right).
Creating the trailer meant not using a simple Windows program such as Windows Movie Maker, we had to use a Mac (Apple branded computer) and using the program Final Cut Pro to create the trailer.
I have used Final Cut Pro before to create a short film, so that gives me an advantage when it comes to creating a simple 2 minute trailer, piecing together the best bits of the film, being careful not to reveal too much.
In the end, We were only able to create a trailer that was about a minute and 20 seconds long, however we were aiming for something that was two minutes long, so the trailer wasn't finished. We had the beginning and the middle of the trailer done, but we hadn't started the end. This was due to poor time management skills, along with poor communication skills. I will take the skills that I have learned here onto my main task and hope that poor time management and communication skills do not become my downfall again.

Example of a Horror Trailer

Halloween

9th in the Halloween series, this remake of the 1978 film is an American slasher film written, produced and directed by Rob Zombie. Rob's remake follows the premise of John Carpenter's original version, where Michael Myers (the main character) staalks the character of Laurie Strode and her friends on Halloween night, however, Zombie's film goes deeper into the characters mindset, trying to figure out what his reasons for killing people are, unlike Carpenter's version where Michael Myers just kills for the sake of killing.





The use of quick edits and extreme close ups at the beginning of the trailer with the newspaper articles (see to the right and below) convey to the audience that a lot had happened so many years ago, it also conveys to the audience the main characters fascination with the night of Halloween (the title of the film) but also because of the newspaper cut outs, there is a lot of mystery created at the same time.

Another thing the quick edits used in the trailer have done is give the audience a taster of some of the violence and possible deaths that will happen at one point or another throughout the film. At the end of the trailer, when Michael Myers carries a girl away in his arms, it possibly indicates to the audience that he has whatever he is looking for, but also poses the question of will she somehow manage to escape, which makes the viewer want to watch the film even more to see if anything more has happened.

The final edit, which is think was best used in the trailer, was between 00:20 and 00:22 where you just catch a glimpse of the 10 year old Michael Myers wearing a mask and looking much older. This I believe was used to once again, see into the future and give the viewer a possible inside as to what the main character is going to look like at some point within the film.

The use of non-diagetic sounds such as a blade possibly being cleaned, the piano at the end of the trailer when the intertitles are showing, the heartbeat when you see adult Michael Myers for the 1st time and at the end of trailer, the screaming that comes from nowhere and the background music playing throuhgout all help to create an desired effect of building up the tension and perhaps get the viewer excited, but also possibly scare the viewer a little bit, but only enough that would make them want to go and see the trailer. The use of diagetic sounds throughout the trailer add a realism to everything that you see happen within the trailer.

There are quite a few valuable shots used throughout the trailer, such as the close up of Michael Myers' face (00:27-00:29) which was used to show no expression on his face. The very long shot of Myers walking away from a hallway of blood (00:42-00:46) which puts emphasis on the blood stain on the wall, indicating to the viewer that someone has possibly died here. The extreme close-up on Myers' eyes (01:10) allow the viewer a quick glimpse into the coldness of Michael Myers, which possibly indicates that there is no feeling inside him whatsoever for what he is doing.

Example of a Trailer

The Hurt Locker

This American made war film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, with the screenplay written by Mark Boal who was a freelance writed, but was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb squad in Iraq. This film was premiered in 2008 but wasn't globally released until July 24th 2009. It is about a three man US Army team that dealt with the disposal of explosives during the Iraq war.

There is a slow motion edit used from 01:29 and 01:32 which I believe to be the best edit used throughout the trailer because it enhances how close he was to almost being blown up by the bombs which are just right behind him and also shows that just like the environment around him, he can also be easily destroyed. I also think it places the viewer on the edge of their seat at this point because of how close he is. In my opinion, all the other kinds of edits used in this film don't stand out as much as the one i've just talked about.

In terms of shots used, there are some close ups used whenever you see significant objects like the bombs or the wires from them being cut throughout the trailer to emphasis the importance of them. There aren't a lot of any close ups on anyone's faces and of what there are, they only show happiness, however a lot of the tilted framed shots show a lot of expression on the characters faces, mostly to do with fear.

The non-diagetic sound of the watch ticking away which speeds up, the heavy breathing you hear and the heartbeat you hear all show tension and that something dangerous is happening. When the ticking speeds up, the tension and danger builds during the trailer, making the audience wonder if the main character will survive all the way to then end. From about 01:10 onwards, the music playing reflects the genre that the director was trying to aim for in the creation of the trailer. It also reflects a fast paced movement, which is something the army always has to be. My final point on sound is that most of the diagetic sound used, which outnumbers the non-diagetic sound used throughout the film, is enhanced, which takes away from the realism of everything shown throughout the trailer, but the audience who the director has tried to aim this trailer at don't see this, they are only interested in the trailer because it plays on male stereotypes with the guns and explosions etc, so the director is allowed to get away with this.