Evaluation 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a lot of technology to produce our teaser trailer, teaser poster and magazine front cover.

Equipment for filming:
Camera- We used an ordinary standard camera to film our teaser trailer. We learnt from filming, that the footage that we got doesn't look the same on the big screen this is due to many different things like lighting and the camera being shaky. We did have problems with the lighting for this trailer, because most of the trailer was done in pitch black with very limited amounts of lighting which means that the camera had problems picking up the images on the screen and constantly went out of focus, which made it very difficult to film as we thought that the film was good but the quality was actually very poor. Another thing we learnt from using the camera was the zoom on the camera also made it lose focus and these two things made the filming very difficult an time consuming.

Tripod- We used the tripod to put the camera on which allows us to film shots that are much steadier than if we just used our hands. The tripod could be made bigger and smaller which means that we could add shots that are from different angles and different heights. We did have some problems with the tripod, these problems include the bit connecting the camera to the tripod was sometimes not there so we couldn't film as we would want to.


Editing equipment and research:
Computer- The computers that we used for our editing were quite slow and there aren't very many computers in the school that has the software installed on them and because there are quite a lot of people that do media in our school so the computers are limited to the amount of students that are doing it. We also used the computers for research and planning and for our ancillary tasks.

Adobe premier elements- This is the software that we used to edit together our teaser trailer, we used adobe to create our titles to put into our final product. We found it quite difficult at times with the editing of the film because the computers were quite slow and the film jumped so was very difficult to judge.
YouTube- We used YouTube mainly for our research as it allowed us to do some thorough research into similar teaser trailers, which will allow us to look at some that we can take ideas that we like from and some things that we don't like so specifically would not include. We also put our final piece on YouTube as we ask people for feedback on it.

Blogger- We used blogger as a place to put all of our research, planning and evaluation on to and we used it like a diary, with anything that we did to do with media we wrote up about it.

Slideshare- We used this to create powerpoints that could easily be put on the blog.

IMDB- We used IMDB for research into products that are similar to ours and so we can get ideas and statistics about other films in the same genre.

Pearl and Dean- We used Pearl and Dean as a major tool in our audience research, this is because it showed us what type of people watched the films that are similar to ours and so we could base the audience that will watch ours on others that are similar.

Creating the poster and the magazine front cover:
Adobe photoshop- We used photoshop to edit the photos so that they fit in to our ancillary tasks better, for example making our magazine front cover into black and white which makes the photo fit into it more.

Adobe Illistrator- We used this software to put the images together that was created on photoshop.

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

For this evaluation task we showed the teaser trailer, the teaser poster and the magazine front cover to the rest of our media class and they gave us their feedback telling what the good points were and what we could do to improve it.





From the feedback that we got, we were told that our products all give away clearly that they are in the horror genre, by the colours that we used and the amounts of really fast shots and by the amount of dark colours we used like black. We we told that our original magazine front cover could of been improved on as it didn't look as professional as it could of been, so we did this and changed the picture which made it look a lot better than what we had before.

Youtube Comments:

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

For this evaluation task Amy (who is in my group) recorded a voice over telling how successful we feel that our three texts together have been together.

This is the script of the voice over:

This is the voice over:

We have decided to have a colour scheme for all three media products, which is red, white and black and this was used in the titles of our teaser trailer, our teaser poster and our magazine front cover. We decided to do this because it shows continuity between all three and when the audience sees one of the products they may remember one of the other two which means that they are more memorable.

We have chosen to have a different picture for our magazine front cover to our teaser poster, because it means that we can show more characters that are in the film and can start to introduce them to the audience.

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

I have taken 9 screenshots from my teaser trailer of what I think show elements of a teaser trailer such as-

Title of Film

Setting/Location

Costumes and Props

Camerawork and editing

Title font and style

Story and how the trailer sets it up

Genre and how the trailer suggests it

How characters are introduced

Special Effects

Title of the film- We have made the title very bright and bold and we chose to make it red so that it fits in with our colour scheme. We put the title at the end of the teaser and because its big and bold it means that the audience will remember it and will stick with them and after research of similar teaser trailers we felt that it looked professional.

Setting/location- This shot shows the main character of the film in his house when he was young and this was the time where he was being abused. This is typical of a teaser trailer of a horror film as it shows one main location and lots of others that all link back to the main location which usually is a house with shots inside and outside.

Costumes and props- This shot shows a prop that we used as a main part of our trailer (the candle) we have used this as it provides the lighting but is darker than using the lights this means that it is better for our teaser as it looks like it would fit into a horror film instead of bright lights. Also we have the main character in a dark costume, we did this because it adds to the horror film and shows that the clothes could be dirty because he was abandoned when he was younger he wouldn't of been able to have clean clothes so also fits into our story.

Camerawork and editing- This is a shot of one of the victims closing a mirrored door and in the background the killer is watching her, we used this shot because it was a very difficult shot to perfect and we managed to do it, we struggled because the killer wasn't in the right place or the camera was seen when closing the door, this means that we had to do it from different angles and heights to get the shot absolutely perfect.

Title font and style- We have used the same titles the whole way through the three media products that we produced, we have done this because it shows continuity and shows the link between all three things. We have also added the blood splat because it shows the genre of the film very clearly.

Story and how the trailer sets it up- The shot of all the pictures on the wall shows the story as it shows the list of who he plans to kill and who he has already killed but in picture form, this shows the basic storyline of the film as it shows who he is planning on killing. Throughout the trailer there are shots of the victims either being chased by the victim or with both being involved in the scene in some way. The film storyline isn't really given away too much by the teaser trailer but gives you a rough idea on what will go on and what has gone on in the past and this fits in with professional horror teaser trailers.

Genre and how the trailer suggests it- The shot I have used is the killer standing outside one of the victims house with a knife, this shows that it is a horror trailer because there is a weapon (the knife) that a lot of horror films have. Also because the shot was filmed when it was dark, it adds to the tension and makes it more scary and unsettling than it would of been if it was filmed during the day.

How the characters are introduced- In our teaser trailer we found it very hard to introduce characters as all the shots that we used were all very quick and this means that it is difficult for the audience to know who any of the characters are and what don't know what they have done to the boy to make him want to kill them. We have included a typical stereotype by having a blonde in a house whilst the killer was outside as this is seen in many other horror films and so means that it is professional.

Special affects- We used a picture of one the victims dead, we have done this because it adds mystery to what has happened to this character and the only affect we used was the flashing light which was made by a torch, we used this light as it is uneasy adn with the characters eyes being wide open it means that the audience will find it unsettling.

Ancillary Task: Magazine Front Cover

This is our magazine front cover:

We have decided to use a different character because it adds more mystery and makes the audience think what could be happening.

We manipulated this shot to make this poster:

Ancillary Task: Teaser Poster

This is the image we used in the end for our final teaser poster and this is what it will look like:

We have chose this image for our teaser poster because he is our main character, and most of if not all teaser posters have the main chaacter as the main image. This image is also a good one to use as there is a lot of shadow, which means that it goes with the colour theme that we have throughout the three products which is black and red, so with the shadow this creates the black colour and the titles are red. We have also used the tagline for our film as a main part of the poster, we have used this in all our products. We have put the "...grow up?" seperate because we wanted to put it in red and against the black so that it stands out more and it runs with our colour theme.

Poster and Magazine Images

We took a lot of photos of different people that we took so we could choose the best one for our teaser poster and our magazine front cover, we did this as it would give us more of a choice on what picture looks the best when we came to editing. These are a few of the photos that we took:

Final Film

First Day Of Filming

These are some photos of our first day

Magazine Research

We found two magazines that would be have our film on its cover, These are SCREAM magazine and SFX magazine. SFX magazine is more of a sci-fi horror magazine. SCREAM magazine is based more on horror films specifically. We have decided to have these two ideas because we feel that having empire would be unrealistic because it would be very unlikely for a low budgeted British horror film to be on the front cover of a massive magazine company. Empire Magazine

We have decided to use Empire magazine

Audience Profiling and Rating

The Strangers

The first film we looked at was The Strangers and this was rated as a 15.

The Orphan

Another film that we looked at in the same genre as ours and The Strangers is The Orphan and this was also rated 15.

Both the films we have looked at have most of the audience that are between 15 and 24, this shows us that horror films that are similar to our idea is the most popular in this age group so we therefore have decided to aim it at this age group.

The two films are different however when it comes to the gender of the people that go to watch the film. The Omen has 52% of a male audience and 48% female, whereas The strangers has a 40% male audience and 60% female audience.

We have decided to have our film as the following:

60% - Female

40% - Male

We have the age range as mostly 15-24

4-6 - 0%

7-11 - 0%

12-14 - 0%

15-24 - 80%

25-34 - 5%

35-44 - 5%

45+ - 10%

We have set the rating as 15

Costume Ideas

These are some ideas for the female character costume:

potential titles for our film

• The List
• The Unknown
• Death List
• Punished
• Neglected
• Outcast
• Vengeance
• Revenge

Our favourite name so far is vengeance and we are likely to use this.

The Strangers teaser trailer

This is the teaser trailer for The Strangers, we have decided that this is very similar to want we want to film.

Genre: You can tell that The Strangers is a horror film because the way that the shots are really quickly edited together and the music with the screams in it. Also the sound that connects all the house pictures together is very loud and dramatic and as it changes, the pictures start to get darker and the red lines become darker which show that it is a horror.

Narrative: Shows that they are in a house and that there are people on the outside of the house that want to kill them. The teaser starts of quite bright and happy and as it goes along it starts getting progressively worse.

Unique selling point: From the trailer you can't see clearly that they have a unique selling point, but when the woman went to the door and one of them whispering through the door is quite unusual.

Target Audience: The target audience for this film is 15 up to about 30, because this is the main audience that watches these type of films.

Music: The music starts off quite normal and happy but as the film becomes darker it begins to slow down. When the action starts it's loud music which fits in well with the action that is happening on screen.

Shot types/camera angles:

Pace: The pace of the teaser trailer starts off slow and begins to speed up gradually. After one of the killers says 'Your gunna die.' the pace suddenly picks up a lot and lots of shots are shown in a very short space of time.

Dialogue: There isn't a conversation between characters, there is only a few lines by each character that is spoken at different times.

Voice over:

Special effects: No CGI

Credits and intertitles:

Animatic

Shot List

A rough idea for our new ideas shot list is:

• Black screen
• Dips to white and you see a door slowly opening revealing a dark room
• The door gets wider and you see a little boy sitting in the corner looking sad
• A wall in the same room shows pictures on the walls with the eyes of the faces of the people cut out and crosses on there faces. The boy disappears
• The Boy appears again as you see him sitting in the corner
• We then see all the pictures on the wall again
• It goes back to the boy, he turns to look at the camera as it cuts to black
• We then see a flash of a long dark corridor
• We then see one of the victims running
• It then focuses on a weapon e.g. knife
• We then see hands covered in blood
• A body laying in a dark room
• Someone turning around looking scared
• More people running
• A sign saying something like "Your Dead"
• A flash of the little boy in the corner of the room
• Someone standing, we can see the legs they are looking out to a room, a knife in their hand covered in blood.
• More victims running
• A body wrapped in a blanket
• A hand opening a door
• Someone closing a mirror with the killer behind them
• More running
• The little boy standing looking at the floor
• The attacker putting his hand over the victims mouth and her gasping
• Black screen
• Titles of the film

Slideshow of shots for teaser trailer

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Soundtrack Research

For our soundtarck research we were discussing with each other if we were going to include a soundtrack in the teaser or if we were just going to have sound effects and the natural noise. We decided in the end that we were going to have a soundtrack.
After filming our film and editing it together we realised that our teaser starts off slow and then goes very fast so we thought this would be very difficult to find music that would fit, however we decided that we would have two different types of music one being very slow and then one being very quick and in the middle we put a crescendo, to separate the two parts of music.

Costume Ideas

These are the costume ideas we have chosen, the look for our characters will be casual. The younger boy will wear dark clothes to make him seem more dull and lonely.

(Pictures of Costume

Character Profiles

These are the Character profiles for our teaser, these will include the main people in our teaser and some minor characters.

Lewis (Me):
The first character is the boy at his teenage stage which will be seen the most. He will be played by Lewis.

Matty:
The second character will be the teenage boy as a younger neglected child. He will be played by my younger brother Matty. This will work well because we look similar so it is authentic.

Amy:
Another character will be one of the boys victims who will be played by Amy who is in my group. Her character will be one of the boys childhood "friends".


Chris:
Chris will play another one of the boys victims who is supposed to be one of the childhood friends.

Lauren:
Lauren will also play a victim, the sister of victim Amy.

Jess:
Jess will play another victim and will be one of the childhood friends of the boy.


David:
David will play a victim who will be running away from his attacker.

Final Idea Plot

A teenage boy played by me was neglected as a child by his family and apparent friends. As he grows into a teenager he starts to take revenge on the people who were supposed to care in his life, attacking them one by one.


Teaser Trailer Plot-

It will start from a black screen and you slowly see a door opening, sitting in the corner of the room is a neglected child. As the door opens wider it flashes between two images the boy sitting in the corner of the room and the wall behind him covered in pictures of people with there eyes cut out and blood over there faces. These two images flash between each other a couple of times then it cuts to the quick scenes that show the action, these scenes will include the boy attacking his victims and them trying to escape. It will end with the attacker putting his hand over one of his victims mouths.

Names for our New Idea

We have been thinking about names for our new idea. Some names include information about the film for example List.

Names so far:

The List
The Unknown
Death List
Punished
Neglected
Outcast
Vengeance
Revenge

So far we like Vengeance.

Font Research

Idea Change

We have decided to change our idea for our teaser trailer. We decided to do this because we felt that it seemed too much like an opening to a film instead of a teaser.

We have decided that we are going to have a lot more quick shots, which is more like conventional teaser trailers and a new storyline which is now set in a house.

Shot list ideas

• Characters Running.
• Titles.
• Focusing on objects e.g. a Door.
• Titles.
• Grabbing something or someone.
• Blood.
• Showing important things to the story.

Plot:

A troubled teenage boy takes revenge on a group of friends from his neglected past.

Idea Powerpoint

Our idea

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Research about Teaser Components for chosen Genre

Soundtrack Research
We have decided that we are going to have a quiet soundtrack just in the background of our teaser trailer, we decided to include a soundtrack because it would tie all the shots we have used together a lot better, because nearly all our shots are under one second we have to decided to go with a fast disturbing soundtrack as it would fit better with our shots.

Costume and Location Research
We have decided to film half inside and half outside which helps the film feel more realistic and to make it look more like a trailer than an opening two minutes, the costumes we have used are dark to make the killer look more intimidating and also we used clothes that look old and dirty because they would fit with our storyline of the killer being neglected so he wouldn't have lots of new and clean clothes.

Actors and Props Research
We have used a blonde as one of the main characters in our film which fits into the stereotype of horror film because they are usually known as dumb and therefore is more liable to being killed. The Props that we are going to use are mostly weapons, but we are also using other props such as a candle and fake blood.

Teaser Trailer Analysis Research
I have analysed some teaser trailers and they have given me and Amy some ideas about what we should include in our one in order for it to look good and be a success.

Shot Descriptions

Chosen Idea and Synopsis of plot

We have decided to go with idea 1 for our final idea, we have decided this because we believe it would be relatively straight forward to film and we will also be able to film it quickly as it is all in the same place.

Idea 2

We have thought about other ideas we could use for our teaser trailer as we cannot decide what to include. I had an idea which used a blinking effect, that you were looking though someones eyes and seeing what was happening and when they blink the scene changes, however we wouldn't be able to do this as there isn't an effect like this on Adobe. We were thinking about having a character doing what they do in everyday life and then when they blink you can see a hooded dark figure a long way away in a dark field, and then every blink after that you see him closer and closer until he is right up close, showing some sort of weapon and thats how we would of left it. We have tried to take things from this idea to put in our final one.

Idea 1

An idea for our teaser trailer is, students go out to a nearby field to go and make a film for a piece of coursework for school. They decide to make a horror film so they decide to go out when it's dark and foggy, they joke with each other about creatures coming out of the woods and generally try to scare each other as much as they can. It then fades to black with laughter carrying on over the top but the laughter quickly turns to screams as two of the characters go to investigate what has happened to the other one, as he is laying on the floor they realise that he isn't breathing. Suddenly the student carrying the camera gets hit with something and as the camera falls to the floor we see the girl character running away into the distance.

Location ideas

Psychological horror mind map

Moodboard 2

Moodboard

Rec Teaser Trailer

Quarantine teaser trailer

This is the teaser trailer for the film Quarantine.

Genre: Quarantine is a zombie horror film. This is a film in which they all get some sort of disease, the only difference between the different films is the way that they get infected by it.

Narrative: The narrative in the teaser trailer is that a reporter and some firemen go to investigate what is happening in a block of flats, when they realise that someone in there is infected and is a zombie type figure. They are then stuck in the block with the infected person unable to get out.

Unique Selling Point: The unique selling point of this film is that the whole film is filmed by one of the characters in the film and all the shots are handheld and the other characters look into the camera as they are talking to the character who is filming, this means that the audience feels more involved in the film and also forms relations to them.

Target Audience: The target audience for this film is 18-30, the rating for this film is an 18 and they have targeted the young adult audience as they would be the most likely age group to watch this film.

Camera shots/angles: Because the film was completely filmed by hand there isn't many ways that they could experiment many different shows, however when the women at the end slides out of shot into the darkness and the camera is in line with her works very well and is very effective, I think it is also very effective because the colour of the background and foreground is very unnerving and with her scream as she is being dragged is very effective.

Questionnaire

Year 13 Assessment Grade

Lewis,

I just spent 5 minutes feeding your tortoises! Very addictive!

Your blog shows some signs of analysis of trailers but little planning.

At this stage your blog looks to be heading for a D in terms of research and planning.

Target: Planning tasks etc that show you are beginning to put ideas down on the blog. Greater detail and number of trailer analysis.

Work to be done but not panicking yet!

The Ring Teaser Teaser Trailer

This is the teaser trailer to the film The Ring, i have chosen to analyse this films teaser trailer as it has some similarities to the film that we want to make.

Genre: The genre for this film is a psychological horror, we have also chosen to make a pyschological horror.

Narrative: In the teaser trailer, they show what the main storyline is about telling us that if you watch the video tape that after seven days the person that watched it will die. This is strange to see in a teaser trailer as normally they don't give much of the story away, they just show what sort of thing happens and shows a few of the characters. We have decided that we aren't going to give much of the story away and to go back to more coventional teaser trailers as we believe that it will be easier to film and will look better.

Unique selling point: The unique selling point of this film is that everyone who watches can relate to it as the way in which the characters die is simply through watching a video and people watch films in everyday life.

Target Audience: The rating of the film is a 15. They aim the film at 15-24 year olds as this would be the age of the audience that would want to watch the film and this age is the main age group that goes to the cinema.