Change

Rather than changing my target audience, which means I will need to change the whole style of the magazine, I'm going to change my idea for my double page spread. Because doing a fashion shoot in a natural setting is unconventional for a high-street fashion magazine it means the rest of the magazine's conventions won't fit; also there is no market for a combination for the two ideas. I am therefore focusing my double page spread on either a feature article or a celebrity story. It's conventional for the pages to be busy with images and copy:

Celebrity article

 Feature Article

Evaluation

AS Media Coursework Film Trailer- Evaluative Report

Intertext/ Genre Research Overview

First we decided our genre would be horror/thriller, as we thought this would enable us to show shots that would appear effective. We thought it had more potential in terms of working on effects, which interested us more than producing a documentary, for example. So we started looking at horror/thriller intertexts such as The Amityville Horror, Scream 4 and The Awakening.  

One of the first intertexts I looked at was the Paranormal Activity trailer, which is where we first got the idea to base our trailer on possession. Also the idea of point of view, from the handheld cameras they use in Paranormal Activity; this links into the personal identity part of the uses and gratifications theory, as the audience can relate to the characters because they give the impression they are talking directly to them about what’s happening and how they feel.  

We then came to the problem of how we would film our possession scenes in the trailer, as we obviously didn’t want it to look unrealistic. We looked at the Cloverfield trailer where we saw how the clips dip to black in really short intervals, as well as the diegetic sound disappearing. In-between the intervals the camera was shaky because the person behind it was obviously running away; but it gave us the idea that we could use this effect of confusion in our trailer in a way that wouldn’t look fake and unrealistic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvNkGm8mxiM

When I looked at The Awakening I talked about the colour and lighting, how it was so grey and only included neutral colours. This gave the trailer a dark and creepy feel to it because dark colours connote death linking to the horror conventions; so we liked the idea of keeping to the conventions in this way to create an immediate feeling for the audience so they recognise the genre straight away.

In terms of setting, we again wanted to stick to conventions; so I looked at The Amityville Horror which includes the conventional ‘haunted house’. Luckily Ellie’s house is in a small village and fitted the role well, especially in the misty morning.   

Industry

We included the production values at the beginning with the billing block at the end as this is conventional for film trailers. We named the production companies Dynamic Pictures and Mountain Media Productions and in this order so as it appears it will link together; for example ‘Dynamic Pictures presents….A Mountain Media production’.

In terms of budget, horror films generally have really low budgets because most of it can be edited using special effects. For example Paranormal Activity’s budget was $15,000, which is low compared to films in other genres and this is partly what appealed to us when deciding to make a horror/thriller trailer.  

Target Audience

We said our target audience would be for male and females, aged 15-21, demographic group E, with a low income. We made our trailer appeal to this audience first due to the age of the main character, Madeleine (Anna) who is 14; so I think this made it relatable for the audience (personal identity) because of the little factors such as her dress codes, hair and gesture codes (shopping with her friends) which contributed to how they could imagine how she might feel in her possessive situation. Likewise, the fact the shots when she’s possessed were in her point of view (shown in black and white) helped the audience understand too.

To have a young teenage girl as the main character follows the conventions of horror trailers/films; for example The Awakening set in a boy’s school and Insidious which also involves a young boy. But I think we challenged conventions in terms of using a teenage girl, also, because it’s usually more conventional to involve younger children.

Strengths

 Our strengths include how we challenged conventions by producing sections of our film and creating the narrative in the killer’s (Madeleine) point of view; the idea that developed from Paranormal activity. We showed this to the audience by editing our film at those scenes in black and white. This made our trailer stand out from the other conventional horror films, which if they did include point of view shots would most likely be in the victim’s point of view. It challenged Propp’s theory of character roles because it wasn’t clear whether she was the villain, hero or both? And so brings in social interaction and integration because it gives something to the audience to talk about which is different from other horror films they’ve seen; even though it’s subtle. 

We included a variety of settings, such as the church yard, town, Ellie’s house and the woods. This helped create the narrative, for example the church yard links with possession, and the woods connote mystery and danger. We used shots in town to involve some personal identity, shots of her shopping with her friends link to who our target audience is and shows her in normality. The idea of this was part of the narrative, suggesting to the audience that she doesn’t yet realise the possessions are occurring. 

Our technical strengths were that we used a wide variety of shots that were composed well; including close ups, medium, long, low and high angles. This helped create the feel to the trailer; for example the first shot of Ellie’s house is long and this helps set the setting for the audience which is conventional at the start of any narrative. Also the low angle of the grave yard which made the dull setting look more interesting, keeping the audience’s attention.

I think the inter-titles were a big strength in our production; using Adobe After Effects Ellie created the titles using the red to bring some strong colour into the trailer as the shots weren’t colourful. The red connoted blood and fear, very conventional of horror films; it also made it look really professional, which is what the audience want, a good quality trailer.

We used several different pieces of non-diegetic music throughout, fading them into each other as well as increasing the pace as the trailer went on. This built tension and brought power, making it seem more dramatic and interesting.

Weaknesses and future improvements we’d make

We wanted to base our trailer on a narrative that wasn’t the same as other horror films but still fairly conventional, so I think we created something that was perhaps too complicated and so we found it difficult to portray the narrative in the trailer; we thought it would help create enigma because obviously in a trailer you don’t give the ending away. For example I don’t think many people understood that the black and white shots were showing her point of view; also how we shot the possession and where we placed it wasn’t clear enough in what was happening. This would have overall discouraged an active audience from going to see the full film because it didn’t look as if it had much of a narrative. So a future improvement or consideration would be to spend more time on the narrative before starting the filming; so we would know exactly how we wanted to do the shots. I think creating a stronger binary opposition in terms of good and evil would have confirmed the narrative too.

We didn’t really include any iconography, such as a knife or a significant part of her dress codes which I think is quite unconventional of this genre because the intertexts I looked at mostly included iconography (E.g. the ghost traps in The Awakening) An improvement would have been to have a knife lying by her as she woke in the wood or something more obvious to show when she was possessed, rather than just the black and white shots and the contact lenses. This would have helped the audience understand the narrative more clearly and therefore making them want to see the whole film.

I also think our casting was a weakness, there was only one main character and even though I played her sister, we didn’t make it clear enough when I reoccurred later on and it didn’t link up. The characters we used were also all female which would have affected the personal identity, especially as we said our target audience was aimed at male and females.

Our technical weaknesses included camera movement, as I think where we did panning shots (E.g the graveyard) they weren’t as smooth as they could have been which lowered the quality of the shot.

Also we didn’t include many shots that zoomed in or out, they were mostly static or following movement. It links to continuity editing, but wouldn’t be so conventional in a trailer because it’s only showing shorts cuts of the whole film. So we would think more about including them in the future as this could have emphasised what was in the mise-en-scene and hence improving the narrative.

FINAL DRAFT 'Fallen Angels' Film Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JODgqolYnmg&context=C4537ceaADvjVQa1PpcFMhMiyShuNEqcEIF4ux7fAZz1ydsrGpYCs=

Note: unable to upload directly from YouTube

'To Do' for Final Draft

To Do:

• We need to do filming in Cabot Circus; to get some bird eye view shots from the bridges. We're going to edit these so it looks as if Madeleine is following/watching me (Amy)- to build the narrative.
• Writing the production values, like you would see on the bottom at the back of a DVD cover including actors/actresses, production company, director e.t.c...
• Work on intertitles- using Adobe After Effects and import into main footage (to also build narrative).
• Re-shoot the shaky panning shot of the graveyard and get a low angle shot of the angel (to have right at the end, after the title).
• To record or find copy right free audio of church bells and to re-record the screams as well as the first voice-over, 'I don't think I can run from this'.
• Finally to ensure our footage sequence is paced to the music, getting faster towards the end and therefore more tension building which is conventional for Horror/thriller trailer.     

Our Film Trailer- 2nd Draft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XykSIRcbLjQ&context=C32d7677ADOEgsToPDskI0bLndTfoLmTlFcdCKvRfw

First of all, even though our 2nd draft is still too short I feel we have included more interesting shots that are helping to build more of a narrative.

The footage we filmed down in the graveyard made us realise that our original title Nightmares didn't fit with the footage we had; we found a cherub statue at the end of a grave and got some ideas of how Madeleine could become possessed by touching it and so the title Fallen Angels would make more sense. I think we had a good range of shots, but need to include more establishing ones as this will look more professional and to a higher standard. We also need to re-shoot the panning shot of the graveyard as it doesn't run smoothly enough to get a clear picture of what the shot includes and generally isn't good quality. 

In terms of inter-titles, I think the ghost like glow around the text makes it look particularly conventional to horror films and therefore helps set the genre for the audience. But I don't think the font looks quite right and we need to work on the transitions (we had an idea to have one moving one way and the second line moving the other).

The possession shots with the dips to black looks effective and having the really short cut to the cherub getting closer and closer in between shows the cause of the possession. We 're going to flash this up more as we get more footage for the final draft, so throughout the trailer the angel will make an appearance before her 'blackouts' (possessions).

So overall we need to get more narrative especially and this will come from getting more footage in town (where we can do more establishing shots within this too) and to record more voice-overs or a short conversation which will help explain the narrative to the audience.   

   

'To Do' for 2nd Draft

To Do:

• We need to get some more footage, this will be mainly of the graveyard and this will improve the narrative so it becomes clearer to the audience. It will therefore make the trailer much more interesting to watch, rather than just a character walking up and down a road!
• Add in and complete our inter titles; as these were rushed when we did the first draft and to apply effective transitions to make the trailer look more professional.
• To create our possession scenes, by having fast moving, confusing shots, which then dip to black (Cloverfield). We've decided that the possession will be caused by Madeleine touching an angel statue which is at the end of the grave. These possession shots will then occur later on in the trailer, for example when she's in town (we are going to shoot this for our final draft).  

1st Draft- Nightmares

The first draft of our film trailer first needs to be longer, there aren't enough shots used that make up the trailer and so the narrative is limited and uninteresting. The shots that are included are good quality and show a variation of angles; although the shot near the beginning of the trailer (of our main character walking the dog) needs to be made shorter or deleted completely.
The other shots we need to include are the scenes of possession (fast shots, then dips to black, intertext of Cloverfield), also shots close to the church (Saltford) which is where the possession will occur and this means we'll need to re-shoot her walking through the village, as the settings won't match up.
The music we included is effective in the sense that it links to the genre and creates a creepy feel to the trailer but it needs to be stronger (that stands out more against previous intertexts we looked at). Also the voice overs of Madeleine's character works well; it enables the audience to personally identify with her because she's telling her story and how she's feeling directly to the audience. This is important in horror/thriller trailers because it gets the audience involved, meaning they are more affected by the film and are more likely to remember it.
Our trailer does involve inter-titles at the start, of the production values only, so we need to include a shot showing the title (close to end) as well as cast names.
The target audience for our trailer is also unclear, I think this is mainly because we have little narrative and little effects (it's quite simple), meaning the audience find it hard to get an idea about who it's aimed at. We want to aim it at males and females aged between 15- 21. Because the main character is female and conventionally horror/thriller films are stereotypically aimed at a male audience it already shows elements that it's aimed at both genders (but we need to make a stronger link); we could do this by including shots that the target audience can relate to, for example a shot of her on her laptop or out with her friends.

Possession in Our Trailer

We've thought of doing the possession part of our horror/thriller film trailer like how the producers have done the panic scene in the Cloverfield trailer; they have used a hand-held camera which emphasises the rush and confusion that the victims were feeling, as well as dipping to just a black screen about every 3-4 seconds (the music is also blocked out to silence). The point of this in our trailer will also to be to confuse the audience; creating enigma as they don't understand what is happening (such as the camera shaking so the character is maybe being attacked or running from something). The dipping to black connotes dangers and death, the audience become blind to what is happening and it makes them want to continue watching.  

Intertext of Horror Trailer (Insidious)

We want to start our trailer in a way which is made to look happy, as if deceiving the audience that there's nothing to fear; so there would be non diegetic music playing that sets a happy feel to the beginning. Similar to this Insidious trailer; starting with a normal family who are shown to laugh and have fun. But with the metronome's ticking sound in the background, as if counting down time for something to happen. This is conventional of the horror genre because it creates enigma and suspense, the audience know it's going to get worse because the beginning is just too happy. But they don't know when.
We've thought about having the tinkling sound of a music box as the trailer starts with shots of the setting on a sunny day. This overall will generate a creepy feel and links to the music box; most films involving possession cast children (like Insidious)  because they are stereotypically innocent and so to have this opposition that they become possessed will go against this stereotype. Because this is a shock to the audience (as it goes against their values) they will be fearful because of the change in what the child now represents.

Pictures of Our Trailer's Setting

I took these pictures around the area we are filming, i was trying to capture the dark, mysterious and creepy feel that we are trying to interpret into our horror trailer.

The lighting being dark connotes death and fear; this gives the audience the feel to the trailer, it gives them a snapshot of what the actual film would be like. Creating this first feeling is important because horror genre audiences will want something that's scarier than anything they've seen before (so the trailer will stand out in their minds).

The settings of the photos are all natural, there are no modern buildings or main roads; this effect gives the audience the idea that it's deserted, there's no civilisation, the area is abandoned. This connotes mystery and creates enigma as the audience wonder why it looks so isolated (has something happened here?). And this is very conventional of horror films; it helps with our trailer because if the audience have seen other horror films that create the same kind of feeling it's likely they will be reminded of it.

FINAL PRE-PRODUCTION RESEARCH on Intertexts, Audience and Planning (1st half)

Intertext research 1st half

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Results from questionnaire 2nd half

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