Research: Draft poster.

This is my draft poster for my ancillary task. I have had a few issues with my previous poster, as to the connotations of it. So I felt that it was necessary to change the poster and create a new draft.


I like the font of this poster, it is clear and easy to read and immediately grabs the attention of the audience. I feel it is very simplistic yet would be more effective if there was blood there which would suggest to the audience that the genre of the film was horror.


It has main actors names which is conventional of film posters.
The image however, does not relate to the content of my film as it doesn't suggest anything social about it. I will need to change this so my audience can relate to it and it will be recognisable.


It also has a credit block which gives it more of a professional look to it and is conventional of film posters in general and horror film posters.
The release date is also clear on the poster so the audience will immediately know when the film is being released.

Research: Filming: Shot types & techniques.

Shot types to consider when making our trailer:


- Establishing shot: This can also be an extreme long shot. This is used to establish mainly location or setting. Also could introduce a character.


- Two shot:  Usually two people. This is used to detail the relationship of the characters in the shot.


- Extreme close up: Enables the audience to understand the characters feelings and emotions.


- Close up: Something of relevance takes up the majority of the shot.


- Medium shot: Shows the character in more detail, can see some of the surroundings.


- Point of view: Shows the shot from a characters point of view.


- Over the shoulder shot:Looking from behind a person at another person or something else.




Camera techniques to consider when making our trailer:


- Panning: Horizontal camera movement in which the camera moves left and right about a central axis.


- Tilt: Vertical camera movement in which the camera points up or down from a stationary location.

- Tracking: A shot in which the camera is mounted on a cart which travels along tracks.

- Zooming: Altering the focal length of the lens to give the illusion of moving closer to or further away from the action.

Research: Conventions of film magazines.

The typical conventions of a film magazine are:

- The magazine name

- Week/date the magazine in released

- Barcode

- Relevant image relating to the feature article/story

- Price of magazine

- Tagline

- Possible website

- Other articles to entice the reader

Research: What Lies Beneath poster analysis

I wanted to look at the conventions of the "What Lies Beneath" poster, to see what conventions on this poster I could have on mine as I would like my poster to be effective like this.

Research: Research for my poster.

After creating my draft poster, I felt I needed to research more into film posters and conventions that they have and I feel are necessary to have on my poster.

My poster will be a portrait style, as this is conventional of most film posters. It will obviously have an image and the film title so the audience understand what is being advertised to them and they become familiar with what the film is advertising.
The stars of the films name is also important as the audience can see who is starring in the film.

 

Iconography is important to my film poster as the audience can see what the film is without being told what it actually is, it doesn't leave them thinking about what it is for too long.The image for my film also needs to be consistent with the content of my film or the image on the poster becomes irrelevant.

Colour schemes are important as it connotes the film genre and provides an outlook for what the film may include, for example, black and red could connote death and danger.

The poster also needs to be recognisable and the audience need to instantly be able to relate it back to the film.This is essential for targeting my audience.

Credit blocks can be seen as not a typical convention of movie posters, but I may want to include one as it gives added information about producers, directors and actors of the film. This is effective as it entices audience and shows a professional element of the poster.

 
These are some examples of credit blocks.

Planning: Original photos.

Planning: Social Book

 Here is our first draft for our created website "Social Book" It will incorporate the features of Facebook and Twitter. We couldn't use actual Facebook and Twitter as there would be copyright issues and we would be causing bad publicity for Facebook and Twitter as in the trailer it is responsible for deaths.


This image, and others will be used on phones and laptops.

Planning: Narrative. Finalised.

Film name: Social Killer.
We liked this name as a group as it's telling our audience exactly what it is and shows it's relevance to our target audience as social networking is very relevant to our audience. As this is such a relevant topic in today's world, it will hopefully reach our audience. Also, social networking can be quite controversial  It also suggests the horror genre as there are killings, it also suggests blood and gore if there is death in the film. 


Characters:  Two females & a killer. Also, students used to film when using computers. Also, a woman's voice for the voice over.


Settings: A bedroom, The City of London Academy (for the toilets, halls and study areas) - As we don't have a high budget, we have to make use of what we have.


Camera: We are going to use handheld cameras for our trailer. Handheld cameras are easy to use and portable to take to any other locations that we wish to use.


Props/Costumes: We will all wear our own clothes as we do not have a high budget. We will use some fake blood to show deaths. We will also use a knife 


Tagline: Is a friend really a friend?




Narrative:  As I am going to create the trailer on my own, I will have my own ideas on how I would like the trailer to start.


I want to have the production company at the start of the trailer. If the company have produced other good horror films, then the audience will think that this one will be good as well and may wish to see this one because a good company have produced it. I will most likely use "Twisted Pictures" as this again immediately suggests the film will be of the horror genre.


The trailer will begin with a woman's voice over. I want to use a woman's voice as women are unexpected characters for voice overs, so I would like to be unconventional with this to make my film different to any of those out there at the moment. At the same time I will show students using computers, phones and talking to eachother. At the start of the trailer I will be showing normality, which is conventional of horror films, and then I will show the quick change of how easily realism can be taken away and turned into something nasty. I will show a laptop with a flashing screen on its own in the dark to show this change.


As the trailer progresses, there will be two deaths. These will not be shown as I don't want to give away too much to the audience but there will be blood and weapons to highlight the genre of the film.
I want to also show the eye of someone killed, to show lack of emotion. I would like for the camera to swirl, like in the Hitchcock film "Psycho"- but this may be difficult to do. 

Planning: Narrative (post-it notes)

These are our ideas for the narrative in note form on post-it notes. They are in quick note form in case we need to add any further detail.

Planning for production of the trailer.

So far, these are the two scenes that I will be directing and producing. It is important that we all have a scene to direct as we can all add our ideas into the trailer so everyone will be happy with what we are going to produce. The whole group will have sheets like the ones in the pictures so we all know what scene we are directing, who will be directing it, which actors are involved and any added props or costumes needed.

Planning: Storyboarding our trailer.

Here are our storyboarded ideas. It is important to story board ideas for the trailer as we are able to follow a structure to filming. I have chosen to do my story board on a computer as I feel that I will be using my laptop for the production stages more than paper and it will be easy to refer to. Using a computer makes it easier for me to communicate my ideas, rather than pictures and drawings.


Story boards also make it easier for filming. It enables me and my group to know what we have for the trailer, and what we may need to add to it.

Planning and Research stages,

Planning: Horror Mood Board

Research: Horror Trailer Pitch

http://prezi.com/cvu92c2rsybd/media-pitch/


This is a link to our pitch for our horror trailer.
Press the arrows to go forwards or backwards in the presentation.

Planning: Quick sketch of a poster.

This is quick sketch for an idea of our poster for social killer. I wanted to do a quick sketch to get my ideas down on paper. We don't necessarily have to include this, but I felt it was important to do a sketch, just so I understand what will be going on the poster. I will also add an age rating to the proper poster, so the audience are clear on what age rating the film has, and have a vague idea of what the film may be like according to the age range.

Ideas for magazine font titles.

These are some font styles I have come up with for my magazine and poster ideas for the film. I felt it was important to research different styles of fonts to get a better understanding of the types of fonts we can use and which one would look best on our magazine cover and poster. I personally like the 3rd font, as it can be edited to look like blood and look even scarier.

Theories to consider.

Todorov: Equilibrium > Disequilibrium > New Equilibrium

*Characters need to have learnt something to change equilibrium.*

Vladimir Propp:  He developed a theory arguing that all fairy tales were constructed of certain plot elements, which he called functions, and that these elements occurred in uniform sequences.

Claude Levi-Strauss:  He argued that narrative tension is constructed by binary oppositions. For example:

Christian > Pagan

Weak > Strong

Good > Evil

Ideas for a "social killer" spirit.

These are our brainstormed ideas on the idea for our spirit that is killing the students in the trailer. We want to make our spirit relatable,  so that the audience find it scary, but we also want it to be something new, something that our audience haven't seen before, which would be our USP (unique selling point)- We want to create our own spirit which will incorporate elements of a wide variety of different spirits.

"Social Killer" scenarios.

Death chainmail

Death chainmail has been round since mail has been sent to mailboxes, unresolved murderers happening around the world everyday with no evidence or cause. As technology advanced, people were able to communicate over the World Wide Web in the 1950’s and ever since, it is allowing us to socialise, nearly every household owns a computer. But ever since technology has advanced so has death chainmail, from letters it moved to emails and then onto instant messages, but now onto socialising websites and thousands disappear, with no cause or evidence, and is put into a top classified folder. 

Character speaking

It was only a joke, someone I knew from another school sent me it everyone in school read the message after I sent it to five people, and them five sent it to twenty five until everyone had read this message, there are 568 students, 565 have forwarded this message to other schools, leaving three students to face their most feared, death. But can they escape death?

Ideas on actors.

We will maybe use ourselves as actors, and we will require maybe a few more, depending on the situational issue of our actors in the trailer. 


Our actors will be both genders and real life students again, showing the reality side of what we want our trailer to be.

Research into props.

For our props, we will use many of our clothes, laptops and phones as we do not have a high budget to buy all new things. We will also buy some fake blood as it is getting close to Halloween, this will be easy to get and will be quite a lot cheaper if we buy it after Halloween. Fake blood will be important as it can show the blood and gore that the audience like, we obviously won't want to use real blood, as that will be unethical.
Some other props we will want to consider using are knives, to really state that the film will be a horror and there will be violence, killings and even death. Hopefully, this will help target our audience too. We will need a lamp, for practicality to shine on a white wall for a shadow of our killer, this will also not reveal the killers identity, just a shadow.

Research into audience.

This is me (Tasha) - I am a 17 year old student. This is who we would like our horror trailer to appeal to.
The horror trailer will appeal to both genders. Typically, the audience would watch horror films on a regular basis.


In a horror film I would like:
- Suspense
- Horror
- Gore
- Blood
- Death
- Music to suit a horror


In general, I like all types of music (indie, hip-hop, pop, rock).


I like all types of films aswell, but horror just has the edge on my all time favourite genres. I like the 'SAW' films as they are puzzles and require the audience to keep attracted to the film.




Our audience will be aged 15 and over as this is the BBFC classification we have chosen. We want it to appeal to people 15 years and older as we feel that most people of this age use social networking sites and would want to watch this film as it would really appeal to them.

Research into location.

We have several ideas for locations for our trailer. As we don't have a high budget, we will use public locations and our own homes and our school. As this is a pseudo-documentary and we want it to be as real life as we can and using public locations and our own homes will make it real life and possibly even scarier.

We will use our school as location as we don't have a large budget. Our school will be a good place to use as it is big and spacious. Also, it will give our audience more of the 'scare-factor' as it is a real life school with real life students.

We will use a bedroom, where a girl could be looking at a social networking site, with a flashing blue screen which could show that bad things will happen to her. This will also show the reality of it all. Using a bedroom is important as it shows that the horror of this 'spirit' haunting the students can even get you in the privacy of your own home.

The garden could be used as at night, it is quite scary at night which will also show that our film is a horror. We do not have to use the garden it just could be a good idea for it. The garden could be used during the day to show any friends socialisng possibly.




























This is quite an open space and quite quiet. It can again be used for social scenes, leaving the house into the unknown world. This doesn't have to be used, it is just another idea.

We will also have another location which is a party scene, where teenagers are hanging out and just generally enjoying their selves at a Halloween party, not realising they have ignored the chain mail and it will now become a living reality. As a group, we liked the idea of a party scene but our focus group liked it too.

We will also use our local park (Burgess Park) to film a part of our trailer where am actor will be using our created social networking site "Social Book" This location can be quite scary, quiet, dull and dark, which is why it is a good location for a horror trailer to be filmed.

AS OF NOVEMBER 2011 WE WILL NOT BE USING THIS LOCATION AS THE PARK IS SHUT DUE TO REFURBISHMENT.

This white wall will be used to shine a lamp on so we can film a shadow of our killer. 

We will also be using our school hall for loud footsteps and students sitting in assembly, we will also be using the coridoor outside the hall to show students walking down.

Furthermore, we will be using school toilets for a death scene and local surroundings to show people walking, using social networking sites and devices and one death scene. We will also be using the atrium of our school to show the normality of students but to also build up tension in the trailer.

Outline of our trailer (so far)

At the moment, we are toying and playing with ideas for our genre, but we want to have chain mail being the cause of death. Students will be using a social networking site (made by us) which they will be invited to a Halloween party (as Halloween is this time of year) - if they decline the invitation to the party they will inevitably be killed. We are certain that we want to use the idea that if they ignore the invitation then they will be killed one-by-one. We are still playing with ideas and thoughts but we are becoming closer to being certain on props, locations and costumes.

Our inspiration came from the film One Missed Call, where people find our their fate from a phone call. We want to call our film "Social Killer" so that our audience know straight away what the film is, and as it has a killer they will probably know that it will be a horror. 

So far, these are basic ideas, but they will be developed when we come together and start to story board our ideas fully.


Our film will be a 15, as there will be some blood, gore and death, but not strong enough to be a rated 18 film. 

Questionnaire analysis/focus group feedback

To ensure we knew what our audience wanted to see in a horror trailer and what they liked about horror films, we felt that we should carry out a questionnaire and run a focus group for a select few to find out in depth what they liked, what they didn't like and if they had any suggestions for our trailer ideas.


These were the questions from our questionnaire:

1) Do you like/dislike horror films?

2) What do you like/dislike about horror films?

3) If you watch horror films, how often on a weekly monthly basis do you watch them?

4) What are your fears (eg, what makes you jump) in a horror?

5) What are your favourite aspects of a horror film.

6) What do you like to see in a horror trailer?

7) What do you like to see in a horror trailer? 

8) *brief outline of trailer* What do you think of our idea, would you see the film?

Sample:

We gave our questionnaires to 7 females & 4 males, this was an opportunity sample of people who were in our sixth form common room, it was a mixture of students in year 12 and year 13.

3 of 4 males said they liked horror.

6 out of 7 females said they liked horror.

Male’s favourite aspects of horror were:

-          Portrayal of scary scenes

-          Gory Stuff

-          Sound Effects/Music

-          Blood

-          Suspense

-          Thrill and Rush

-          Death scenes.

-     Tension

 Some answers were given more than once in the questionnaire..

Fears were:

-          Spiders (1)

-          Rats (1)

-          Silent scenes

In a trailer they liked..

-          Scary stuff

-          Parts of a scary scene

-          Blood (2)

 Female’s favourite aspects of horror were:

-          Jumpy scenes (2)

-          Sound Effects/Music

-          Action (2)

-          Death (2)

-          Violence

-          Tension

Fears were:

-          Jumpy Scenes (3)

-          Scary faces

-          Devils and Demons

-          Unsuspecting scenes

-          Music

  

In a trailer they liked..

-          Jumpy scenes

-          Appropriate music

-          Action (2)

-          Something that is worth watching in cinema

-          Blood

-          The general idea of the film

2 out of 4 females, after hearing about  the trailer would watch the film.

4 out of 7 males, after hearing about, would watch the film.

Focus Group:
We ran a focus group on Wednesday 5th October to gather some research from an exclusive group of year 13 students to research about their ideas on horror films and what they liked/disliked, and what they thought of our initial trailer ideas.


In our focus group we had 4 females and 2 males. 


The name "Social Killer" appealed to the group as it was a contemporary issue, social networking and connecting with friends, and the killer part made them know instantly that it was a horror film. 


The focus group liked our idea of it also being a social issue as they felt that it was scarier, because it was dealing with a real life issue and would be a pseudo documentary


We found out that the focus group liked suspense, music, jumpy scenes and cliffhangers to make you want to find out what happens, in film trailers. 


The group suggested that we have:


- A flashing blue screen in darkness, to add to making it scarier suggesting that the computer is alive?
-Having computer key noises when flashing up facts on screen.
- On our draft film poster created, we could have a pool of blood under the hand on our next one, to make it look really effective and look like that there is a large amount of blood loss, to show the audience that the film will be gory and scary as there is lots of blood.