Evaluation

For our evaluation we had to do a presentation to the class, we also had the choice of doing a podcast, however we felt that our presentation went well so we stuck with it. Here is our presentation:

Story Board Presentation

Story Board Presentation

View more presentations from hashleyj.

Our trailer

These are the first steps we are taking in producing our trailer, we have produced a script which we plan on turning into a story board before filming so we can follow how we are going to shoot on the date of filming.

As we have stated in previous posts on this blog, our inspiration came from other trailers, and we took different elements and added them to our own trailer to make sure we conveyed trailer conventions and make it look as realistic as possible.

Here is our first draft after editing trailer for The Cult, this is what we will be showing in class for feedback on Wednesday.

After showing the trailer in class on wednesday we got lots of feedback. We don’t particularly like what we came up with; so the feedback we got helped us immensely to turn our piece of film around in the editing room.We particularly got feedback on the transitions between shots, and the credits. We originally had the shots with a fade in, fade out black – black effect, which we kept but changed the timing between each as we got further towards the end to make it snappy to create more tension. When Lucy runs up the stairs we were advised for the banging of the stairs to then carry on throughout the rest of the trailer. We learnt that this would increase the tension and the shock factor. The audience then told us that we should drop the banging at the credits to give the impression that the trailer has finished, however the banging would start up again when Lucy screams to heighten the shock.The most occurring comments was that the trailer didn’t seem fast paced enough for the typical conventions of a horror teaser trailer, so what we was going to do was re-film altogether but then once we had further feedback we released we had great potential with the footage we already had but all we had to do was edit it a lot better, and add sound to more of our advantage. Troubles that we had while filming where getting the camera at the right angle to see Lucy screaming, however after playing with the tripod we figured it out. While filming the street scene where Lucy and Lewis are walking towards the camera we had a lot of cars come past the first couple times, which therefore made it so you couldnt here them talking. As well as this the first place we picked was too dark so it was hard to see them furthur back, to overcome this we moved the camera under a street light.

FINAL TRAILER

Magazine Cover

The programme that we used to create the magazine cover was Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Draft1

From analysing magazine covers we started creating our mag cover. Our first task was to come up with a title of the magazine, we went with Take1. We then inserted the picture that we took before, centered it and like the poster played around with the brightness and contrast. We then added more detail, for example we added the title of the film and a quote.

Draft2
After getting audience feedback from the audience on our first draft they said we needed a lot of improvement, first of all they said we definitely needed more magazine detail. We then decided to add a special deal where you get three free posters. We also moved the title of the film and quote up.

Final magazine cover

We again got audience feedback, this time they said the detail that we added was good but we needed more, especially ones that are typical conventions. From this we then added a barcode and information of whats actually inside the magazine. The audience also said that

Taking the pictures for the Magazine Cover.

The day Lewis and I decided to take the photos for our poster, we also thought that it would be a good idea to take the photos for the magazine cover also, this is because we had all the equipment we needed, the actors, right setting, lighting and time. So we took the pictures at Lucy Ballance's house as it had a dark room, which when the lights were off was pitch black, which was perfect for our photo as we needed absolutely no light apart from the specific lighting we chose which was a small battery torch (which can also be seen in the final photos).

When taking the photos, we experimented with the lighting and angles of the camera to give the best effect. We ultimately decided on having the main source of light in the actual photo, with the character looking up into the camera to give the best menacing look.

Film Poster

From having our draft drawn out for our poster we then started to create it on our laptops. The programme that we used was Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Draft 1

This is the first poster that we created with no audience feedback, at first we liked it a lot as the photos taken from before worked really well. The editing that we did was to change the contrast and lightness of the whole image. To make Lewis's hand look more worn we also used the burn tool (which darkens areas) in specific spots to heighten the shock factor. We also wanted the title of the film to be hard to read to increase the mystery of the image. Our main influence for our poster was the babysitter poster we liked this one because we thought the image of the girl was a symbolic and eye catching image. To make our poster mysterious and to differentiate to the babysitter one we decided to darken the surroundings of Lucy.

Draft 2

After creating our first one we got audience feedback, the main thing that they said was that the image of Lucy wasn't scary and shocking enough. They said it "almost seems like she knew she was going to be taken" this isn't the effect that we wanted. So instead we used a different photo that we had taken before that we thought increased the scariness and shock factor. As well as this the audience also advised us to changed the title of the film and add a date. We made the title of the film easier to read and changed the placing of it slightly to center the whole poster. When adding the date we decided to make it just the year and again to center it, to make it different to the title we added a gradient to add some depth to it.

Draft3After making those edits we went back to the audience and got more feedback. This time they said the image was perfect and thought it was great. They still couldn't read the title of the film that well, so we went back and increased the opacity of it so it would stand out more, like the date we added a gradient. They also said that we needed more detail on it. This is when we added a lot of new aspects. For example we added a little light shining through the middle of the title, this is a typical convention of horror posters as it denotes that isn't much hope left. We also added another convention of film posters which is a tag line, ours says 'This time they wont let her go...' which we thought doesn't give a lot away about the film but still entices them.

Draft4

We wanted more audience feeback from our third draft and this time they were impressed with it but still thought it was a bit bare and not clear enough. To make it easier to read we increased the brightness and contrast. To add more detail we added four of the actors names, two either side of Lucy to carry on with the central theme. We also added production detail at the bottom of the poster which nearly every film poster has.

Final Poster

We again got audience feedback and realised that one the school compuers you couldn't see any of the detail so we had to go back and increase the brightness huge amounts. We also increased the contrast to up the scary factor. Overall we are really pleased with our poster and have great feedback from it.

Magazine Analysis

Magazine Analysis

View more presentations from hashleyj.

For the magazine cover what we need to consider is the layout, colour scheme, other stories and what picture we are going to put on.

For the layout we thought that we could make it as central as we can having the character in the centre of the page with the title of the film just below in the same font we have used in the poster and trailer.
We want to include some sort of promotion on the cover, as this is typical convention of all magazine covers, we have decided on inserting 3 free posters all of which promotes our own film. We also are going to include, information of other stories in the magazine such as reviews and interviews but also something a bit different like behing the scenes special of the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

We also need to come up with the name of the magazine, and what font, colour and size we are going to have it. We want to name of the magazine to be related to film, so its easy to understand what the magazine is about as it is the thing that will pop out the most when people are looking at magazines on the shelf in the shop. Below are a few ideas we have:

The Take
Film Preview
Review Mag
FILMmag
Take1
TakeOne
Hollywood
Blockbuster
EPIC FILM
We will choose out of the above.

WE also need to consider what colours we are going to use, and after looking at other already existing magazines we have seen that there isn't many different colours and they all conicide with eachother. So havig lime green, with a dark maroon isn't going to work. We also want to make sure they cover has a sinister effect so it relates with our film.

Taking the photos for the poster.

In order to start creating the final product of our poster we need photos of our main character Rosie played by mine and Hannah's friend Lucy Ballance. The three of us organised a date when we were all free to go round one of our houses and take the photos. We decided on Lucy's house as she had a good room that can be pitch black with no disturbances like street lights. We wanted to use a professional high resolution camera (an SLR), I knew a friend had one so I asked if we could borrow it, which we could. The day after me and Hannah went to Lucy's house and choice a spot to take the pictures. First of all we chose in front of her front door because the door is a heavy wooden door which would be a nice dark background. I would be the hand that covers her mouth so I went outside and got my hand dirty to give it the 'worn out' effect, we rubbed Lucy's mascara with water to give the effect that she had been crying and again to give the 'worn out' effect. We also messed up her hair as well to make it look like she had been bashed around and struggling. When we turned on the SLR we realised it had no battery and had no charger for it. We then thought that we would have to find a charger and waste time, however we chose to use a digital camera that Lucy had. To help us make the choice we took a few photos to see how professional the photo outcomes would look, we were happy with the outcome and choice to use Lucy's camera. Here are a few of our first photos we took:

We stopped taking photos for a while and looked at the ones we took already, we wasn't sure about taking them in front of the door and thought that it was generally too bright. To overcome these problems we went into another room and turn all the lights off and used a torch as lighting. This direction and outcome of photos we liked much so carried on using different directions of light and intensity. We also realised that Lucy's reaction/expression in front of the door wasn't terrified enough and shocked so we changed that as well. Here are our final photos for the poster:

Overall we are very happy with the photos and think that they will create a great poster and achieve the effects we want.

Creating the poster

Now that we had the photos for the poster I started making the poster using Adobe Photoshop CS2. This is a program that I am very familiar with and have used for about three years.

Poster

Poster

We are now looking at starting our first ancillary text, the film poster.
After looking at different films posters and analysing them, we know what the conventions are of a typical film poster, and how we should produce ours.

First we need to know what content we want to have on the poster and after looking at a few we thought that the best way to protray a horror film genre is to have not a lot of detail and only one main image of a key character from the film. So either Lucy or the killer, we decided that because we want our film to focus mainly on Lucy because she is the main character and it is her story. We wanted to show that this isn't just a random person being attacked and it isn't just an element of chance, there is a reason why these people are coming after her.
So unlike films such as The Strangers, where they justify why they are being attacked merely being because they were just 'at home' which I believe to be an actual line from the film, the reason behind this terror which is being inflicted on Lucy is down to her past.
We also want to leave as much mystery behind the poster as we can, so not showing the killer and just his hand around Lucy's mouth will create a quite sinister feel to the poster.

The poster portrays Lucy completely as the victim, and sets up the character well as we wanted to have the film focusing on Lucy’s story rather than just a random person being attacked as there is more to that, there are reasons behind this attack rather than just a element of chance where the victim happens to fall under the killers actions. So having her as the main subject in both the poster and the trailer and not showing the killer takes attention away from him and onto her.

From our analysis of film posters here Hannah devised a draft for our poster by extracting the most common traits of the posters we analyzed these were:

• Taglines
• Centered lighting
• Title of film on a dark background

Different Fonts
The font that we use on the poster will primarily run through the same throughout all our different tasks, to creat continuity and professionalism. As the background will be black the title of the film therefore will be placed on a dark background so it 'pops' out of the image and we will be looking at the best colour schemes for the Title so this effect is pulled through more. In addition to this the tagline will also have the same effect, as you can see on our drawn draft we haven't thought of a tagline yet but will have one by the next draft. As well as the title of the film being on a dark background we also want it to have some sort of effect on it, what we specifically want we're not sure yet and we're going to see what we come up with when we create the poster on photoshop and edit the photos we are going to take for the poster.

ADD FONTS

Lighting
The two posters that we wanted our poster to be similar to the Babysitter and Scream. To relate to these two posters and centered lighting we decided to have Rosie's face in full view with the lighting straight on her. The background will be completely black so the lighting is centered.

The detail in the poster isn't reflected in this particular draft however, we do want Rosie's face to be dirty and 'worn out', as if she has been fighting to get away and we've captured a still shot from her struggle. To relate to this we then would have to have her face/expression as terrified and the kidnappers hands dirty as well. We want the kidnappers hand to look dirty and worn so it gives the film a more menacing and vicious feel. To really represent that the kidnapper is in a cult and relate it to the title of the film we decided that he will have a rosary running through his fingers to denote his allegiance to the cult.

We plan to take the photos for the poster tomorrow at Lucy's house in a pitch black room, this is so we can play with the lighting to the best effect and not have to worry about cutting out the image and then placing it on a black background. If we have take them in a darkened out room it will look more realistic and professional.

Horror Films

‘Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain.’ – Wikipedia Nov. 09
Horror films are originally based on classic literature such as Dracula and Frankenstein. They often are based on a serial killer or a supernatural presence such as aliens or a ‘monster’.They are very usually set in a haunted house, or in a lodge in the middle of a forest, they concentrate on isolated locations or suburban American homes.

The narrative of horror films according to Propp are as followed:
Equilibrium – Disequilibrium – A new state of Equilibrium

Also, that each character in the film has different functions to create the narrative:
The Hero – who saves the day
The Villain – evil one who causes the disequilibrium
The Helper – who helps the hero on their quest/the sidekick, the helper usually ends up dead
The Victim – this character can also be seen as the hero, they are the result of the villains evil but also go out to destroy the evil
The Donor - Extra quality to help the hero

Typical Camera shots –
EXTREME CLOSE – UP = creates tension, shows facial expressions, connotes the victims distress.
CLOSE – UP = subject fills the frame, shows more about the actions of the character but also shows emotion.
DUTCH TILT = Often used to create disorientation.
EXTREME LONG SHOT = creates the scene, can also connote someone watching from a distance.
LONG SHOT = can be used to show someone in a surrounding but also see the villain approach from behind, creates tension.

Lighting is very important in the making of a horror film; it usually is the key in what creates the tension in a scene along with sound. For example if you have a young women in a room and have a killer approaching from behind to attack her, it would be more affective if the room was dimly light than if it was very bright.

To prepare ourselves for the project we set a day to watch the following horror films: The Strangers, The Ring, Scream trilogy and An American Haunting.
These are all typical American horror films, with a killer/monster and victim that doesn't have any particular pyscological thriller sense that you get with most horror films, we did this on purpose as we didn't want our own film to be portrayed in this way so we thought it would be best to keep to the classic horror - we no hidden story or twist but just pure terror and fear. With these type of films you can easily guess what happens in the end, but I think that with a horror film you aren't going to watch some cleverly thought out, big-twist, shocker of a film, but something that will scare you witless and hide behind your cushion to.

We are going to look at all these typical horror conventions, and make sure we can put as meny into our own project as possible to make it as professional looking as we can. We aren't looking to over complicate it with any over ambitious story, but just a pure good horror trailer, which does what it sets out to do - SCARE!!

Ancillary Texts Film Poster

Film Poster


Here is a presentation that I created to aid us in creating our film poster. I analyse a series of five posters and afterwards conclude.

Analyzing Film Posters

View more presentations from The Cherwell School..

So now we have analysed some film posters, which are within the horror/thriller genre we can look at how we are going to make our own poster.

Research into teaser trailers.

To help us come up with our teaser trailer we decided to research them but more specifically horror trailers. Here are a few that I looked at:

Scream 4
The Strangers
Mirrors
Paranormal Activity
The Haunting In Connecticut
The Unborn
Halloween 2

Scream 4

This particular trailer is very similar to how we want to make our own trailer, the trailer itself isn't as fast paced as the others, and is showing more of a story but then still cuts up the scenes from the film to only show snippets of what is going to happen. This makes it look like a trailer, rather than the beginning of a film which is what we have to be careful not to do when making our own.

From the horror ones I can see that they are very quick paced with flashing images of short clips, usually screaming or the main scary parts. However before this they build up tension by usually displaying some sort of text, sometimes a question. In my group we decided that we like that text appearing and will be doing the same. They also quickly change the pace and atmosphere to engage the audience and to give the shock factor. The non horror trailers have a similar template. They again choose the main/exciting parts of the film and flash them up, however they don't seem to use the text technique. The horror ones always seem to have some sort of non-diagetic sound to create tension and atmosphere, we will again be using this technique.

This research has definitely helped us to decide what our content our teaser trailer should have.

Starting point..

For our teaser trailer we have ultimately decided to make our genre horror/thriller. We decided this because a genre such as this is easy to portray for such amateur work, to create a tense and sinister atmosphere is relatively easy as fear is a feeling that is quite simple to bring out in people. The equation for a horror trailer, is fast snappy shots, in a domestic area, not much dialogue and as a general rule of thumb is set at night time, and because we have only home video cameras, the technique of hand held camera, can be justified with films such as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. But this is just the beginning to our planning for a trailer, as we have seen plenty of horror films ourselves and horror trailers we know what generally makes us scared when we see these texts, and so we already have the basic knowledge of what is going to make this project good; we still need to do more research. We need to look more closely at teaser trailers, and then specifically at horror trailers, but also horror films.

Pitch

Rosie has a secret..something that no one in her present life knows about until now. Betsy has been a phycatrist for over the past 20 years and for all her time served to estranged patients from the St Mary's hospital she has never come across a story like Rosie's.
The Cult is the previous home of Rosie where she lived with her mother and two brothers.. at the age of 16 she'd finally had had enough of the abuse and torture her elders oposed on her and managed to escape to a new life and new world outside the religious bounds this cult has given her. 10 years later she comes across her past that never fails to haunt her, and has to fight to save herself and everything she has built around her.

The content of our A2

When in class we were given 5 objectives and had to choose one to complete. We picked the one to make a teaser trailer. This is the main task to complete. There were another three as well well which we had to complete two of, the three were to do a design of the homepage of the film, the second was to design a poster for the film, the third is to design a magazine front cover advertising our film. We decided to make a film poster and magazine cover.