Evaluation

There are many ways in which our media product develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products, for example the conventions we used were:
-For or movie poster we used conventions of a horror genere tha would be used in today to give the real effect of a real movie poster to attract the audience.
- With our film magazine we got several conventions of exsisting product magazines for example the two magazines I analysed which are Empire and Fangoria magazine as they are popular film magazines which attract my target audience as it is horror.
- There are the obvious conventions like the setting of a horror film, which in my research i found out a dark isolated scene is mostly used to show its away from the rest of the world making the protagonist feel alone and can't get help in anyway as no one is around.
- The conventions of music, editing and camera shots are just as important as this is what gives mot of the effect towards a horror trailer. For example with the music and sounds, its dark, orchestral music to put the audience on edge. With camera shots, we used a lot of high angled tilts to show the power balance, and the same with low shots. We also used tracking shots to follow people when running to give a good effect and make it almost feel like the audience is running with the character.
- Film noir was also used in our trailer for example on the scene with the acid pouring on the boy it didn't show the acid itself falling onto his face, this therefore isn't showing any disturbing images therefore it is aimed at our target audience 15+ as there isn't too much blood and gore.
- Our group also got the ides from a study theory from Vladimir Propp in 1969, as we used several stereotypes of characters which are used most in media products today. The most common characters would be: The protagonist, the villain/killer/ghost, the dispatcher/counsellor and not forgetting the helper/friend who thinks normally the protagonist is just crazy.

We also had conventions we developed to make our product more effective and suit the target audience these were:
- The theory of equilibrim we used his conventions however not to its fall protentional for example instead of starting with the state of equilibrium we started with the protagonists childhood trauma that then leads the audience into the main part of the story. The equilibrium is obvious when the protagonist has bgan her new life and this is disrupted when she moves back to her home town which she then regrets when seeing the ghost of the boy she killed, she has to face her fears and stop it from destroying her life.
- In our horror magazine we had to develop the convention that the font should be in the center of the page not the top left which we originally did but we found the images on the page just took away the attraction from the main title. So therefore we took this into account and enlarged the font and put it central therefore the target audience would notice the title when first looking at the page, then notice the main images. As we found in research the masthead is very important to a magazine, as this is what would be rememberable with the reader on every adition.

This image is a good example of how our trailer follows a traditional horror film, with the protagonist looking at their reflection in the mirror, with the killer/ghost/villian behind them.

When me and my group showed people our final product to get audience fedback, we showed the magazine cover, the film poster and the actual film trailer itself, it helped us consider things to make them better and target our audience more effectively.
With the magazine, I learnt that the audience thought it was pretty effective and it grabbed the readers attention however you have to be careful to make sure it fits the genre of my trailer. The audience also suggested keeping to a horror colour scheme so these were reds and blacks to keep the magazine dark and mysterious. Overall the audience feedbck was mostly positve and there was very little criticisms, I got a few suggestions on how to change a few things just to give it that bit more of a boost for example with the film tralier, people suggested putting the boys ghostly face over the spilt beaker in the flashback to make the audience on edge and feel as if they know something terrible is about to happen. To just having the spilt beaker, it doesn't give the same effect as the audience have no idea if his dead or what actually happend to him in the flashback. We took that into acount from the audience and changed it which made the whole flashback look a lot better.


This project helped me to work better in a group and work together by taking eachothers ideas and putting them together to make the final product look at its best we could do. It also helped me to be scheduled with my time for example with the filming we had to be organised when we were going to film certain parts of the trailer, which is why we had a film schedule. Not only has it helped me to be more organised within working with a group, it also taught me how to use the media technologies. Before doing this project i couldn't use a lot of the technologies i found them very difficult, now I am able to use them alot better for an example premiere pro is the program we used to edit and cut our filming to make it more effective, after working with my group and finding out how to use the program better, I found it so much easier to use and then abled me to help edit the film more and put in my own ideas. This program is also a good one to use, because of all the tools you could use make your trailer look a lot more profesional this is why me and my group chose to use this one.
Another program I used for our project was photoshop which I used to create the magazine front cover and film poster, I found this more easier to use as i had used it before the year before for my year 12 project which was to design a magazine front cover, double page spreed and contents page. Therefore i new about most of the tools to use to give the best effect on the magazine cover and film poster to target our specific audience. I also used photoshop to edit captions within our trailer, so this program was good for many uses, its also simple and easy to adapt to, it has many functions to make it look very effective. These were the only two programs we used for our whole project, however we come to conclusion we did not want to use sound-booth for the audio track, the reasons were it takes alot longer to understand and would take a lot longer when we wouldn't have all the time to focus mostly on the audio track, so we just edited the music on premiere pro as then it would already be with the film its self. Howevere there was a disadvantage with this, sound-booth had a lot more functions and tools I could have used as it is a specialist program for editing and cutting music but again we needed the more time to edit the filming. The most important technology we used was a digital camera and a video camera. We used the video camera to capture our footage for our trailer, and the digital camera to take photos for the film poster and magazine cover. This was probably the most important piece of media technology that we used because this is what made our project work. Another important piece of technology we used was the computer macs at school, because these computers have all the programs on and without it or using a normal computer it would have been 10x harder. There were also other technologies like websights for example dafont helped me and my group out a lot whilst in the making of the products this is because it was usefull for getting a font to fit the horror genre instead of using a boring simple font already on the computers, as these wouldn't attract the audience in such a big way.
I feel that without the use of media technologies we would not have been able to produce the products that we did to our full potential, if at all.


I think the combination of the trailer, film poster and magazine cover worked well together, this is because the film poster on its own wouldn't be enough to promote the film as the audience like to a little more about the film before actually getting round to seeing it and thats the same with the magazine cover. Also the film trailer itself would'nt be enough because again it would attract our target audience however due to audience feedback, most said they would'nt see the film if they just saw the trailer as there wasn't enough information and they would like to know a little bit more about the film itself. So alone all of these products would'nt advertise the fil effectively, although when they are all combined together they are very effectively advertise also to a wider audience, because our target audience are likely to read magazines and likely to go to the cinema more and see our film poster which therefore the target audience would get drawn in and watch the trailer itself. we have incorporated synergy into our project, both the trailer and ancillary texts have the same horror conventions and therefore compliment one another and would all be associated easily. We also put synergy into our project because we used very similar fonts in all three of the products, which helped create the synergy, and of course the images can also be associated with one another. We wanted to promote the face of the villain and the protagonist so that our audience would be familiar with the actors. We also ceated synergy with the film poster because the image we used is an actual image used in the trailer, this gives the audience more of a feel towards the film itself and where some of the film will be based, which is a grave yard. It also gives the horror film feel to our target audience.

Overall me and my group were quite pleased with how the film trailer, film poster and magazine cover combined together.

In conclusion I found that mine and my groups project was very successful and i'm happy with our overal success, this is due to the qulity of the audience feedback as we didn't get many negatives on the whole thing. However if we had longer to change anything with our products I would make a few changes for example with on shot within the film trailer, were the ghost/boy suddenly shows up next to the tomb stone, i'd make it so the tomb stone was the same colour as it changes very slightly when the boy shows up next to it. I would also re-do the shot when the ghost shows up facing the protagonist as there is a slight movement with the protagonist when the ghost shows up, and its meant to be still.
With the magazine, I again wouldn't change much however I would get a little clearer main picture of the ghost as I think it blends in abit too much and its abit blury however i'm happy with the cover overall along with my group and target audience.

poster and magazine feedback

In order to get feedback for the poster and magazine cover we had to do it differently to the film trailer, so we printed large copies onto A4 and went to harlow with them, to show the public when they walked past. We tried to ask people around our target audience to get more honest opinion and so it wasn't biased. With the magazine cover we asked people between the ages 15-30 if they regularly read magazines and if they were interested in horror films. We therefore asked series of questions an example of one was "would you consider buying this magazine by looking a the cover if it was a similar price to its competitors" a lot of the target audience said they would flick through the rest of the magazine before buying but most people said they would put in the same consideration as they would for a popular magazine.

It was different for the movie poster, me and my group stood outside the cinema with our large A2 posters and asked our target audience if they are interested in horror films, most said yes so then we asked if they would watch the film after looking at the poster, most said they would have to see the trailer to this film before totally watching it however they thought the poster was very effective and would grab there attention to the film, most said it was very mysterious which they liked.

Overall me and my group were pleased with this feedback as a lot it was very positive. We seemed to have targeted our audience well with all three pieces, the trailer, film poster and magazine.

Trailer feedback

After we succesfully finished our group film trailer, we thought we would get feedback from our final project therefore we posted it on social networking sites such as facebook.com and youtube and waited for comments and feedback, this enables us to find out what we could have done better or things people liked about it. We used these websights because they are most popular used at our target audience age which is 15+.
From our feedback, overall the comments were posotive and we didn't get any negative comments as our target audience were overall impressed by our final trailer. However we did get some questions asked about our trailer, these were things like when the release date was, implying that the trailer was authentic and the audience thought it was real this is a very posotive question and shows our group work to get a successful trailer worked and is appealing to our target audience.
Overall i am very pleased with our audience feedback for me and my groups trailer as it turned more successful than i thought it would. I'm also glad I didn't have to change anything to my video.

Our final film trailer

Re-shoot/ Re-edit

Our group did not re-shoot anything, however we did re-edit a lot of our film trailer to make it more effective. We was lucky enough not to have to re-shoot as all of our shots first time were exactly what we wanted, it did have to take a fair few times to take when taking the shot, as something small as someone else in the shot who wasn't serposed to be there or the camera being at the wrong angle. Therefore we would re-take the shot there and then, to get a better effect for example different camera angle. Because we didn't have to re-shoot anything it gave us a lot longer to re-edit what we had to, as we had a few things we wanted to change t make it look more profestional and it is the most important process within the media. We did however have to re-edit our trailer, primarily due to audience feedback, we re-edited 5 parts of the trailer all together.
These were the most important changes we had to make when re-editing our trailer;

1) The first piece we had to re-edit was the lab shot, this is where the boy walks through the cass room, trips over someones foot, then acid spills on him, then the camera stares at an empty beaker which contained the acid then it fades. However when we edited the scene it is not in chronological order, it starts with a shot of the spilled acid that was in the beaker, this gives the audience more suspence and make the viewer understand what the scene is about. Then it is followed by the boy walking before he gets tripped up, we cut back to the beaker then the boy being tripped, back to the beaker, then the liquid spilling on him. Te finally of the beaker and fades out slowly to give a dramatic effect and know something bads now going to happen. Whilst this flas back is taking place there is talking of the protagonist and phsychologist. We also spead up this clip and gave it more panicky and put an audio track behind all of it whic is creepy.

2) The second part of editing we did was again in the same flashback, it was simple and very effective. When we first of all had the fade away from the beaker at the end of the flash back, we decided to put a ghost image of the boy with a burnt face on the top which becomes clearer on the screen as it gets darker. We decided to do this to make it clear to the audience whats just happened to the boy and make the trailer creepier. This as done by stretching and cuttng the scene with the close up face to make it a slow frame. This was then put on another video track making it the main image. We made the opacity roughly 40% thismade the beaker look like the main image and made the face look like a ghostly image.

3) The next piece of editing was the gravestone moving away from the flashback shots. This is when the killer/boy appears in front of the tombstone. The first shot is just of the tombstone on its own by a church, then the boy appears next to it looking right into the camera. We made the transition smother with a crossfade to make it look a ghostly appearence. We also had to speed this shot up to fit in with the pace of the rest of the editing as it fits in just when the protagonist is running saying "its here" it also had to fit in with our auido track. Where as before it was too slow and looked all abit messy. Therefore all we did was add a crossfade between scenes and use the stretch tool to shorten the shot.

4) The forth piece of editing was the final after the credit. This is when the killer comes towards the camera unexpectably. This is to make the audience jump and not expect this shot because its after a fadeout and all the sounds/audios stop. Then suddenly the viewer sees the killers face appear. This was initally backwards and not startling to make his movements look more unnatural we then sped the scene up to a second so that when is is seen it is almost sublminal. Also it is so the viewer doesn't have time to make out the figure of the person which is typical of most horror trailers, there is always that horrible yet quick image that mostly sticks in the audience mind. This is so it is creepier and more shocking.

5) The final piece we re-editied was the audio track. We had to make the audio more effective and fit in within our trailer. In order to make this most effective we cut the first section of the sound, we slowed it down whilst the psychologist was speaking to the protagonist this is to make it creepy and understand what they are talking about without too much rushing around because it wouldn't have fitted within that shot of the slow flash back and talking. To finish this section of editing we added an exponential fade at the end of the audio track to give the trailer a fade out as opposed to an abrupt and quick end. This therefore made the whole trailer look a lot smoother and fit well together.

Movie Editing Process

When it comes to making the film itself, editing itself is the most important process. This doesn't just go for films, its the same for magazines and any other form of media. Therefore this is a step by step of how our group did the editing.



The first step of the process was importing the video files from the camera into the premiere pro program. To do this, we simply clicked file, Import and select the files or folder which contained the clips we needed.



all of the imported clips are found in the side panel to the left of the preview window so its easier to find.



The main tool used in editing is the razor tool, this is used to cut a single clip into multiple clips, in order to move them around, edit them separately and shorten clips to give a better effect or to make it suit your video by shorterning.







this is what the clip will look like once cut, in order to move it all you need to do is drag it and drop it where you like.
There are several tools on the toolbar, the only other one i used however, was the stretch tool.
as mentioned this tool simply stretched or shortened the clip or audio track you chose, this would speed up or slow the FPS (frames per seconds) and the speed of the audio clip, speeding up the audio track would make it higher pitched whereas slowing it down would make it slower, so editing the audio is difficult and not recommended. When this must be done in order to synchronize the audio track with the video, audio transitions can be used to blend both audio clips together.






We imported the audio track in the exact same way as we imported the video clip, when editing an audio clip the tracks will appear on the bottom few rows, they look like this




the top of the 3 is the main (default) audio track, the picture of the speaker in the top left corner is to toggle the mute option, i used this for all of the audio sections of the video clips i wanted silent, i dragged the audio into the second lane labelled "Audio 2" and muted that lane.
When i needed captions in between frames rather than editing them on premiere pro, i decided to create them on photoshop and import them as image files



The images are imported the same way as everything else, the images will appear with a purple square beside them, whereas an audio track will have a green square next to it and a video, will have blue.
like every other media type, the images are dragged onto the work are, under the video section alongside videos



the eye in the top left determines the visibility of the media, we used the "video 2" lane in order to change the visibility of the scenes which we want the audio of.



when the image is placed on the track it will look like this.
in the window however it will look like this






as you can see it doesnt fit the screen, which is easily solved by clicking the image, and dragging it into the correct size, like resizing an image in photoshop.when the image fits the screen, simply press the enter key and the image will stay in that position, this process was used with every picture uploaded.
transition effects between frames and images were very important and made the difference between a smooth video and a jagged, messy video, the main transitions we used were the dip to black and cross dissolve, the fade to black scenes are useful to fade into the captions and images because the background for these images are black.







effects are always just dragged onto the clip, and can be stretched out to make the effect last longer.



the title sequence at the end uses the transitions Iris box, dip to black and cross dissolves.
at the end of the audio track we have used an exponential fade to give the audio track a fade out, and to stop it from sounding so abrupt we stretched the effect to make the fade gradual.
the yellow line on the audio track determines the decibel level, for the music track we increased the decibels to roughly 5.67 making the volume higher.
The yellow line on the video layer changes the opacity, taking advantage of this allowed me to ghost an image of the killers face over an image of the corrosive beaker by putteng it under the "Video 4" layer
The video may not work very well and run slowly unless it is regularly rendered, to do this, simply press the sequence drop-down menu and press render entire work area, this will make the video run smoothly and apply all effects

Final Film poster

This is the final film poster me and my group created for out film Memoria.
We used this main image of the main protagonist in our trailer Steph looking back over her shoulder whilst standing in a grave yard which you can faintly see in the background. The image of the girl is lit up well so she stands out from the rest of the poster. The idea we put her in a grave yard goes well with the whole of our film plot, as she accidently killed a boy and she feels as if he is now haunting her. This also gives the poster a spooky effect which is what we wanted to make our audience feel a little frightened. Like the other posters i analysed i did not use over-dramatic effects but simply iconography whilst showing the setting and like the others it is a dark and/or isolated setting. The title is at the top of the page because like other poster I analysed the title is either at the top of the page or at the bottom to stand out but not take the effect away from the main image. The writing is large because this makes the title stand out and hit the audience so they recognise straight away what the film is. We also used this font because the swirls make it look mysterious, the colour is red because it makes it slightly resemble blood and goes with all our other colour schemes with the magazine cover. Also our audience agreed that it represents horror straight away just from the simple colour red. All the other writing is in a standard simple capital letter so it doesn't stand out most from the poster but it is important so you still can't miss the important facts like when its out.

Final magazine cover

This is the final magazine cover our group created. After analysing different film magazines we took this into consideration and got ideas for our one. We went with what the audience decided was the best title which was ASYLUM this was also the best option because it goes well with our specific genre which is horror. We also gave the title a spooky/gory effect with the blood dripping down from the title also using the dark red colour to give this more of the scary effect to suit our target audience. Also we stuck to a simple colour scheme which is black and reds mainly this is so the cover wouldn't be seen as too busy with too much going on, making it hard for a spacific image or headline on the cover to gab the readers eye. We decided to use one main image and then have small ones at the side, this is so the audience can tell which is the main story and what this issues magazine is going to include and give information on most. Also as this enlarged face is creepy and i faided into the background slightly it gives the cover a creepy effect showing its genre which is horror. So therefore it will straight away grab the target audience attention. We also placed red writing underneath the main image this is so the reader can straight away tell what film this is from, yet again we used the colour red to stand out and go with our colour scheme especially as the main image of the face itself is red.
The masthead is "ASYLUM" as it refers to a medical institution which is used in a lot of horror films as a setting due to the fear and horror of psychologically unstable people. These reasons paired with the feedback we got from our target audience make our reasoning for this name, the font was obtained from www.dafont.com and is called "cold night for alligators." We used this font because it gives the impression that the words are written in blood, which contributes to the iconography of a horror magazine.
We have other images on the page on the left hand side but only have two therefore it has been kept nice and simple with not alot of information on giving away the whol magazine, but enough to have the reader interested. They are horrific images which again shows more of the genre of the magazine, as researched this is typical of most horror magazines to have these srt of images on the page. A pug is used over the top of the main image on the right hand side, this is to attract the readers attention as it is bright in comparison to the rest of the magazine, it's designed to look like a sticker which has been added on after production. After doing research I have found that pretty much any magazine of any genre have pugs to show an inclusive bit o information to make the audience want to read about. They all have something different written in them, our group have "asylum greatest horror movies revealed" to attract our target audience.

Our group filming schedule

When filming our trailer our group made a schedule we could work by to make things easier and know how much more we have to do and when. It looked something like this:

Cast and positions taken place: Katie Evans and Hannah Bray- Filming
Josh Cuncarr- Filming and acting
Steph James, Mus Moroglu and Dan Banner- Acting

Locations- Katie's house, Cheshunt park, in a science lab, St Mary's church and graveyard and Outside Dan's house.

Tuesday November 9th- To do all indoor scenes e.g. Katies house

Time- 4:30-6:30

Wednesday November 10th - Half outdoor scenes e.g. Cheshunt park
Extra cast needed- Micheal Grayston- Transport
Dan Banner- Technical equipment/lighting

Time: 5:30-6:30 as darkness is needed for a scarier effect.

Tuesday November 16th - Final Outdoor scenes e.g. St Mary's church

Time: 5:30-6:30 darkness is needed again.

Re-shoots: TBC

Analysed film posters

Again me and my group have to make a film poster for our trailer. So i thought i would analyse well known horror film posters to help me decide what would be best for our own poster to attract our target audience.

This film poster is quite simple, its got a dark, cold feeling about it which is typical of horror. Also what makes it more mysterious is it doesn't have much writing other than a tag line on the left hand side in a smallish font saying "I will do anything to live" which already suggests to the audience this is a horror and will inlove nar death or even death experiences. Themain image is the background of this poster, it is quite intresting the main protagonist (a woman) looking in the mirror which she could be doing as a day to day basis as she could be getting ready for bed or something as she is by the sink in a which looks like bathroom whilst not dressed in many clothes. However there is a strange looking man/boy in the mirror but quite fadded out so looks almost like a ghost. However when the audience look at this poster its almost like the audience themselves are that ghost as we are looking behind the protagonist into the mirror.
The only other bit of writing on this poster is the actual title of the film 'The Unborn' it is used in a very simple yet bold letters, its a bright white colour which comes out of the image as the rest of it is dark and black. Also the colour white gives it a ghostly effect to the poster.

This film poster for saw is very different to the one above for many reasons. First of all unlike most horror films and posters, its not dark infact there are is alot of white, like the background. The thing that hits the audience most of all is the image in the middle of the poster, which is a chopped off hand. This is a disturbing image yet its clever because you have no idea who the hand belongs to as there isn't a picture ofthe protagonist like the poster above. This poster is clever to make the audience wonder alot about this certain poster and what the film is to do with as it doesn't give anything away the only clue on the poster is again in a small font which doesn't stand out from the rest of the poster and that is "every piece has a puzzle". All this mystery makes the audience interested in the film as no one is to know what the films about untill you watch it.
The only other thing that stands out from the rest of the poster is the actual title of the film "saw" it is a browny red colour which makes it look like old stained blood as its all scruffy writing aswell.

This is the final film poster i have analysed. Again this is different from the other two, its more busy to the other two above, however like the unborn poster the main image is the background. The protagonist is again used in this poster, it shows her looking in pain with hands that look as if they belong to a creature grabbing her down. However the fire around her is hiding what the creature is thats pulling the woman down. The fire has been used well in this poster as hell is asociated with hire and devils, hense why they have used fire in this poster. This is also different to the other two posters in the sense it gives more away about the film, as the background of this image has lots of old looking houses which shows the audience the film will involve houses like moving into a new one which is haunted or the protagonist gets lost and stays in a house for the night but just with the wrong type of person. It can sugest anything. Also this posters has more writing to the other two posters, its tag line says "Christine Brown has a good job a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days she's going to hell" just by those lines its already given away some of the plot but cleverly leaves the audience still wondering about the films plot. Again the poster is dark even if there is abit of colour from the fire, the background is night time which again is typical of horror films but this makes the title stand out from the image, just using the colour white and having it old fashion bold writing gives it all a creepy effect.

After looking at all 3 posters i have realised they all put the title at the bottom of the poster, it is also always in capital letters to make it stand out from the the poster. The colours they use aswell are always very bland because of the background colour/image is userally dark. If light then the title would be a bland drk colour. It also gives me an idea of using our protagonist in the picture either just having a small section of her like her eye as she imagins things or having her looking scared in some sort of way. I also realised that they do not give much away about the ghost/creatur/villian so i think me and my group will take that into account. The last thing is we wont put many words on our poster as its more likely they don't have much written just a small catch line to make the audience wonder.

Magazine feadback

Just like we did about the film trailer we went round with another survey this time it was about a magazine we could do for film genre. Again we went to the cinema as they are likey to know about film genres and this time went to WH smiths as they are a good magazine selling company. We showed different people mainly ages 15+ because that is our target audience, our detailed designs such as name, layout and articles that would interest readers.

The different names we had for our music magazine that people had to choose from were:

- Asylum

- Freakshow

- Slaughterhouse

- Filmfest

Most people prefered 'Asylum' out of our choises this was because they said it fitted well with a horror genre which would be best to advertise our film, all the others seemed boring to 'Asylum'. We then showed different people layouts of what our magazine will look like,

Example:

However this was chosen to be the best layout, the reasons as followed were people liked where the title was and how it stood out, so it would straight away catch the readers eye, it is also typical of a magazine to have the title of it, in the left hand corner. They also said they liked how the main image was going to be the background of the front cover of the magazine, it makes its effective and stand out grabbing the readers attention. When we asked them about what colour scheme would be best most chose a mixture of reds and black because this would relate to horror and they like the fact the title 'ASYLUM' was in red showing blood stains, making it seems scarier.

Analysed film magazines

As I am doing a film magazine aswell as a trailer and poster, i thought to make my magazine like a real magazine front cover and suit my target audience i would analyse some exsisting film magazines that are near to what me and my group are trying to aim at.

This is the first magazine I am analysing, called 'Empire'. It is one of the most popular film magazine avaliable. Whenever there is a new film out they will use it on the front cover, this is inteligent because it will attract the trget audience as they would want to know more about the new film due out. With this magazine they have stuck to a colour scheme which is mostly reds and blacks, beause of the main image is red and so the masthead has been made red with a fire effect coming off it. This is all standing out aswell because behind all the images it is just plain back, this is so the magazine wont seem too busy unlike if you had a totally different colour as the background. Its been kept plain and simple. The magazine has also made the sub titles white and in a normal bold font, this is so it doesn't make the reader take there eyes off the main image and read the sub headings.

The second maggazine I am analysing is "Fangoria" this is another popular magazine in America. Already by reading the masthead you can tell this is aimed at horror films because of the title has the word 'Fang' in it which iconography for vampires and dangerous/scary creatures. The lyout for this magazine is interesting and different from the the magazine above, this one seems alot more busy and more aimed at horror films than films in general. The reasons for this are, there are more vivid images the main image is of a dead man in some sort of trap with his stomache ripped off with a catch phrase saying "lets it all hang out" but literatuly, already by the image you can tell this is from the horror film 'Saw' even though it says in big words over the image. Also on the left handside of the magazine cover there are small pictures of other disturbing pictures which the reader would be able to tell are from horror fims. This is different from the magazine above because that only had one image which showed it was more based on the new realised film. 'Fangoria' has many images which gives more away about the magazine and whats inside.
Again The magazine has stuck to the colour red as a colour scheme which represents blood and gore, how ever this front cover is more busy compared to the above, it involves more colours and images which makes the magazine seem more busy and full of stuff to do with horror.

After analysing these different film magazines, I have come to conclusion that 'Empire' is good in the sence they put the new realised film on the front cover and has many good ideas I could use in my own magazine. However it is too sparse when it comes to genre as it could be based on any genre film. Whereas for 'Fangoria' it is more spacific at what genre its aimed at which is horror which is what I want my magazine to be based on. So therefore I will use ideas from this magazine aswell.

Audience Feedback

To make our ideas for our movie trailer better, we showed our storyboard to 20 people from our target audience. We went to a mixture of places, one was the mac rooms in our school and asked a handful of year 12's and 13's as they are 15+ which is our target audience mad would be interested in the media therefore know what they are talking about.

We also went to the cinema in enfield, we looked for people who were interested in the horror genre and are likely to go regular.

Our results were varied and most of the people we asked thought it was a good story idea with an interesting twist and would like to watch it. However others we asked thought it would be a hard story to follow and get confused by the twist.

A majority like the trailer but had a few opinions we could change an example of one was instead of the protagonist crying in the kitchen corner it would be better to lock herself in the bathroom to give more of an effect she's scared. Also we got told that some shots should be changed to make the film trailer seem more panicky and chaotic to put the target audience on edge.

Conventions of Horror films

Horror films are made to make the audience frightend and on edge whilst watcing the whole films. Most horror films have a twist or a shocking end, this is so the film isn't predictable, bcause when watching it from the start the audience think they know how the film is going to end, until the twist. In horror films there is always a main character the story will revolve around the (protagonist), who often starts off as a innocent, would'nt harm anyone, but all turns round and the protagonist turns out to be a survivor who either fights off the problem whch is normally a killer, or gets killed whilst trying to save people and themselves.

The villain/killer/demon creature normally is known for a certain way of killing victims this is almost a trademark, an example would be: A nightmare on elm street, the killers trade mark is he comes into peoples dreams as they sleep and he kills them. You cannot get away from him because everytime you sleep he will come into your dreams. For our own trailer we have looked into the conventions of the trailers and plan to make ours have its own twist making it effective to the audience putting them on edge.

Our plot for our trailer/ storyboard

Box 15 is a shot of the title of our film "Memoria" its against a black background so it will stand out. The title will slowly fade in and out from the background.
Box 16 the final shot is of the protagonist placing flowers on a grave with the ghost standing behind, she will be on her knees whilst the ghost is standing behind her. This will be a low shot.



Box 13 is another black out, which will last a second. It is the final black out as we didn't want to use too many.
Box 14 is the protagonist facing the ghost as it appears in the shot. One another are looking at eachother.



Box 11 is a close up shot of a scared face this shot will be a close up of the ghost/villian walking towards the camera.
Box 12 is a quick shot of the protagonist on the phone saying "its here", this will be a close up shot to show the protagonist expressions.



Box 9 is the protagonist running down a pathway using a tracking shot to follow her run. This will be quick scene.
Box 10 is a slow tilting shot of the protagonist washing her face then looking in the mirror the villian is behind her when she looks in the mirror.



Box 7 is the protagonist crying in a kitchen corner with her arms wrapped around her legs this is a high angle shot looking down on her to show vulnerbility.
Box 8 is silhouette of a front door with lights and banging noises to show someone wanting to get in. This is a medium long shot.



Box 5 is the protagonists boyfriend/friend shaking the protagonist whilst shouting "there's nothing there" showing that the protagonist is going crazy. This will be a long shot
Box 6 is another black out to give a better effect



Box 3 is a close up of the beaker leaking with the hazard sign to show its danger. There will also be half of the persons arm to show they have spilt it.
Box 4 is a quick black out, there is no sound but then becomes eerie or quiet.



Box 1 of the storyboard, there is a shot of the the protagonist on the sofa using an over shoulder of the psychologist so it looks as if your seeing it from the psychologists view. This open shot is of the protagonist talking about her childhood whilst laying on the sofa.
Box 2 is a boy walking between two tables in a chemistry lab, holding books. It is a low angle shot to show the foot of someone trip the boy up and show him falling on the floor with acid spilling. This will be in black and white to show a flashback with the voices of the protagonist and psychologist talking.

Target Audience

Our group has decided to set our target audience and the ages 15+ the reasons for this is it would be 12 viewing certificate if i was shown in the cinema or sold as a dvd. We decided to target our audience at ages 15 and upwards because we want our film to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible in order to increase the sucess for our movie. Also if i was 18+ it would be harder to make it suitable for the older audience, it would have to be scarier and more gory. Atleast this way it doesn't have to be so gory or scary. Also 15+ is a suitable age to be able to comprehend the complexity of ur plot aswell as being to enjoy the film without it being too far fetch or confusing. Also horror is very popular to ages 15+ s we have taken that into account and have chosen that as our final idea.

Focused analysis of mise en scene

This is one of the most important aspects to take into account. This is because the setting of where the film will be and what's around it creates most of the fear. For example if its dark and in an old house this can make the audience more fearful as you cannot see what could come up and scare you. This would be different if it was bright and was in a nice looking house, the audience wouldn't have the same fear within them and be afraid when the killer will appear. Typical horror films are set in a isolated area that no one knows much about, like when characters go out for a drive, break down and there is a house in the middle of no where, where the characters will end up staying and face near death.

For my trailer the protagonist is totally isolated from from the rest of society by moving far away from home but when she returns she is again isolated she hasn't been there in years, doesn't know anyone and has no longer got anyone to turn to.

Mise en scene is used in very clever ways to create a fear to the audience, often iconography is used throughout the films, and example of this would be repeated images of blood and a very close up of a face with either a mask or something not quite right about it.

Clothes are also key within the horror films for example the protagonist would be wearing normal clothes, sometimes nice clothes due to the characters going out for the night before something happens, by the end of the night the protagonists clothes are all torn up and covered in blood. The monster/villian is often in dark clothes and often has something on his face like a mask or scratched up face so you never see what the killer looks like so gives off a mysterious effect making the audience at ease.

Focused analysis of sound and music

The typical sound used in horror films/trailers are eerie and high pitched. This creates a fear in the audience, it normally starts off slow and then builds up getting louder and faster then stops to a sudden silence this shows the audience something is about to happen. Most music in horror films are dark and mysterious fitting perfectly for the scarier effect. However some horror films use more upbeat music which creates a disturbing contrast between the music and events. For my film trailer I have decided to use the eerie tune, this is because it will fit well with the type of horror trailer we are going to build up.

focused analysis of my characters

After analysing the different type of characters in different horror films, in my film trailor i have decided the protagonist is a female who at the start is a happy young woman. It all changes round when she vists her hometown, she becomes scared and paranoide. As its a supernatural circumstances nobody believes her. However as the film goes on she becomes stronger and braver as she fights against the thing thats haunting her. This fits the horror conventions because the protagonist changes her attitude when she has to deal with the situation.

Focused Analysis, Characters

Normally in horror films roughly in the twenty first century the protagonist who is originally naive, vulnerable, attractive and usually young. This doesnt always apply for all horror films. Normally the female will be terrified of the situation around her. However the character has to deal with the situation around her so the female will become brave and plans on doing anything to live so this includes forgetting original morals for example never to kill anyone as she was once a innocent sweet person. This doesn't always apply to horror films sometimes the protagonist is a male which can be slightly different to haing a male character because from the start they are normally brave an willing to take the challange to save his life. Sometimes if its a group of people the male would be the leader the one who helps the other survivors.
Occasionally in horror films to make their film slightly different the evil killer can be a child to put a slight twist on the story, as children are normally classed as innocent, sweet people who wouldn't think of doing such a bad crime. However if you make the child the killer the audience would be shocked to who the killer was all along. An example of this would be;

The orphan: A innocent family want to adopt a girl t add to the family. She is young, innocent and seems sweet, she likes to do things like paint which makes the audience think shes just doing what kids do. However she is found to be causing lots of problems with the family nearly killing all the family members apart from the father, firstly you'd just think shes jealous of the brother and sister because she doesn't get the same sort of attention as she is different and gets bullied at school. But the audience are soon to find out she is actually a 40 year old woman who is a killer this is a big shock to the audience because you wouldn't have expected that from the sweet, innocent girl from the start.

There are also your super natural films, which despite the sex of the protagonist nobody will believe them this therefore creates them to feel isolated which causes tension. An example of this would be;
Nightmare On Elm St: The protagonist is a happy young girl who doesn't believe in anything like supernatural horrors of Freddy Kruger untill the young girl had witnessed herself with him in her dream. No one believes her at first because of her age and the fact she didn't believe it to start with herself no one is convinced and thinks shes making up or has a good imagination. She finally stops trying to convnce people and tries to stop him by herself. This shows she is brave and gives her a change of attitude towards the situation.

With the villain its a different story, the character will always remain ominous and mysterious you hardly know anything about the or see them much, this causes more tension because you don't know who the character is, why they are doing so, are they taking revenage? Also you never really see their faces this shows more mysterious within the character. If nothing is really known about the character the villian is more likely to pop up when you least expect it, making the audience tense. A typical horror film would only show the villian when its dark making everything ten times worse as you cannot see much and whats going on, unless its a supernatural film there are more willing to show their identity.
An example of this would be:
Paranormal activity- You don't ever see who the villian is because it is invisable and the protagonists can't see it they just sence is presence. It also only comes out at night so the protagonist woman who is getting stalked by the villian has to put the video camera on video at night and set traps like flour on the floor to see if you see the foot prints, just to see where it is. However at the end the killer gets inside the woman therefore she kills her husband and she is the new villian.

Saw 1- The killer controlls a puppet so you never see who the killer is. This gets the audience wondering about the type of person the killer is. All you know about this person is he supposed motive to be helping people.

A nightmare on Elm St Trailer

Editing: In this trailer it follows a typical horror trailer. The start of it is conventional it has slow shots which build up the tension and can sence somethings going to happen, then it fades into another shot making the audience on edge and know somethings not right. Then it changes to lots of fast shots of different events happening this shows panic within the audience and the characters themselves. Its interesting because the shots variey from slow, short shots to fast which the audience don't expect. Also another clever editing skill is the music is in time with the shots which makes it very effective.

Mise en scene: At the start of the trailer it is dark and in a place which pretty much looks empty, like people used to live in this area and don't anymore. Its very old and mysterious, theres no sound until a mysterious man is getting chased by 3 cars that the audience has absolutly no idea as to why. The fact the start is set when its dark fits in well with the film, this is because the killer kills people when they sleep so being chased in the dark gives off the impression thats why he does it at night. 1 min into the video we are shown a shot of the sign 'Elm st' and then shots of a normal streat with houses and people living in it, which is simular to the start of the trailer but the difference is people are living in this street and its not abandend.

Everyones dressed in light normal colours which is different to the villain who is wearing black and cant see his face, he also has blades on his hands to make him seem a little more abnormal and know somethings not right about this character and recognise straight off his the killer. There is a shot at 1.17 minutes which looks like an old factory/store room which keeps coming up in the trailer so its showing that this place must have a big part within the film, almost have a link to the villian. Also within the trailer you get disturbing images which are stereotypical of horror, its to make the audience feel at edge yet interested, an example is young girl is at a funeral with scratch lines down her clothes, they use children shows their innocence with the harsh realities of what happens to the victims.

Sound: The start of the trailer has heavy breathing which shows there is panic within the character which leaves the audience wondering whats going on, why is there panic? With the breathing you can also hear quick footsteps like someones running and you hear this before you see the actual character running away from cars. Suddenly there is a loud bang and thats when the music kicks in, its got a fast paced and goes with the man running, the sound of cars hitting there breaks aswell gives off the fact everythings in a panic rush. Already by 28 seconds the sounds and music has made the trailer seem very action-packed. Suddenly thats when we get talking, its not a voice over its the characters we here the mans name 'Kruegar' and whilst one of the chasers is banging on the door you here him say "come on you sick basterd" this already shows you he is a victim and has done something wrong to upset people, as he was mentioned as being a "sick bastard". Also you get a sence of feeling sorry for the man being chased as he says "what did i do, i didn't do anything" whilst this dramatic music builds up as one of the chasers is about to throw a can of petrol with fire on it through the window as you hear glass smash. There is a quick sudden silence after the dramati sound whilst the building is setting alight, then a caption appears in red, and then there are 4 quick shots with a loud beat to everyone that appears, with talking over about the villian. Then it goes into a longer shot of the sign of 'Elm st' and has singing of children, which is peaceful with an echo yet makes the audience slightly worried, there is a regular beat in time with the childrens singing that sounds like footsteps, this gives the impression that something bad is coming. Inbetween these sounds there is loud crashes, screaming of women etc. There is a silence for a quick second then it makes the audience jump with a scratching screechy noise of the vilians hand scraping across something metal. After there are short shots of different scenes and bad things happen to the characters, throughout this there is a heart beat sound everytime it changes to a different shot, and talking over it one is with a man saying "don't fall asleep" which is very important because thats when the villian will come and get you.
Towards the end there is lots of screaming, bangs, noises then the last thing you hear is a scream then a sudden thud noise with the title coming up on screan with the villian saying "you have nothing to worry about" when there clearly is and you finally see abit of the villians face before going onto another caption. Which is really effective as it says "dont fall asleep".

Film Poster Mood board

Storyboard details

cooncah

Levi Strauss Binary Opposition

This is a theory which promotes the idea of understanding words. And example of this would be understanding the word cowardly, this is mainly understood by recognizing the difference between its opposite which would be courageous. In media, Brinary creates interest through opposites and contrasts, therefore for a film trailerr the interest would be created by the contrast between fast scenes and slow scenes. When a film trailer is jumpy this creates tension to the audience.
Our group movie trailor will take advantage of this because there will be a opposition relation between the protagonist and her roommate because the protagonist will be insane and the friend will be sane.

Tsvetan Todorov

Tsvetan Todorov was a Bulgarian philosopher, specializing in literary theory, came up with the theory in which most movies are based around. I am speaking of the theory of Equilibrium, this is the idea that every story, be it novel or film, has a formula in which the story will start with a sense of equilibrium, where everything is calm and constant. This is then broken or brought to a "Disequilibrium" when a problem arises and things are no longer constant, this will bring about a chain of events untill it comes to a resolution which brings about a new equilibrium which is not necessarily the same or as calm and constant as the original. An example of Todorovs theory is "House on Haunted Hill" Dir. William Malone 1999. The original equilibrium begins with an interview at a theme park with a millionaire all is well untill the audience realise that the invitations for the mansion are being supernaturally changed, typing and sending themselves. The disequilibrium is completely disrupted when they realise that the house is haunted, a new equilibrium is met when they escape the house and find the cheques for $1000000. Modern horror and thriller films are using this method more often because it leaves room for a sequal, should the film be very successful.
Our movie will follow the latter of the two because it has become the norm and always has a surprise at the end, our film will follow this theory in a way aswell. Our starting equilibrium begins after a scene in a chemistry class and lasts for a while because our protagonist is happy in a relationship and ready for a promotion but needs a mental health check with a psychiatrist. the disequilibrium comes about when she realises that things are not right and she starts seeing and hearing unusual things, the new equilibrium is brought about when she faces her guilt and gets rid of whats bothering her, and she returns home to her husband. This is going to challenge this theory because the last scene of the movie is going to be a long embracing hug when the husband sees the same manifestation, the audience will then see a quick flash of the chemistry class and it shows that he is the man who tripped up the boy in the first place.

Changes and Reactions

There were a few problems we noticed and gaps with our story that we were unable to see. We took these into account and therefore changed a few things. The actual idea of our plot was good and our target audience who are 15+ were intreagued by the idea. One of our obvious problems was the protagonist lived alone and the problem with this is; people would just think she was going crazy or the ghost is just in her head. We changed this problem by making her move in with an old friend who lives in the area, this way there is more evidence she isn't going crazy. The friend is therefore able to tell the audience that he didn't see anything, this gives off a better effect and makes the film seem more scarier.

Another change we made was the reason to come back to her old town, the original idea was she would come back from a long trip to new york, but we changed this to her psychiatrist tells her to return for her mental health in order to get a job promotion. This is showing the audience there maybe a problem with her health showing something is not quite right and can predict something bad is going to happen. We also came to a conclusion that her husband and job is in London instead of New York this way its a lot easier to film, as New York is too far away. These changes and reactions have been vital to the project as it has helped us to notice the flaws which were hard to notice at first.

Small summary

Our film trailer is based on a thriller where a protagonist is haunted by the manifestations of a guilty conscience from her past. The story is relatively easy to understand but will take a lot of thinking about.

Movie plot

Movie Plotline

One Missed Call grid of 9

One Missed Call Grid of 9

The Decent grid of 9

Decent Grid of 9

The Orphan grid of 9

Empty Grid of 9

Introduction

For my media coursework our group have chosen to do a film trailor instead of a music video. Our film will be psychological horror. This way it is something different from the average horror film, it wont be pradictable. Along with our film trailor one of our other tasks will be to create a magazine cver which wont be too difficult as we did that in AS media coursework. Therefore i am very familure with using photoshop and the tools. There are a number of reasons why we chose to do a film trailor these are;

- The group can be a lot more imagative as it doesn't have to be realistic like a music video would have to be more. The group also came to a conclusion that it will be more of a challenge to a music video.

- Our group can also take more part in a film trailor as it involves using acting skills, it also provides the opportunity for each member of the group to have a fair role in the production of our final product, as there are alot more tasks to be carried out to give it the fall affect of a typical horror film.

From this task we hope to;

- Be able to work as a group to prevent a good film trailor

- Be able to be different, to make our film trailor not like a normal orginal horror film, be more imaganitive, and understand what makes a typical horror film.

- Be able to understand the media conventions in a way to make our film trailor effective to our target audience.

Storyboarding

For this task we were giving small drawings of people at different angles and settings for example someone walking up te stairs or a hand on a light switch. We then had to put these pictures in a certain order to make up a story scene, this was a relatively easy excersise the only problem was when we had to go round the school and take pictures to copy this story board it was hard to get the right setting to fit the image on the storyboard for example one was walking up the stairs with there hands on the rails. So we as a group had to find the right stairs where the width wasn't too wide, the person couldn't put both hands on the rails. One other problem our group had was the camera didn't have enough memory on the card to take all 9 photos, but we overcame this problem by taking a few at a time then putting them on the computer. when putting them in the storyboard i realized that it is a mistake to stretch images to fit, therefore i corrected this. i also realised it is much more helpful to take all images either landscape or all images portrait.

Back to the future- Camera exercise

For this exercise we were given a sheet of verious camera angles and how to set a small part of the film 'Back to the future' at the time we didn't know what film this was so we could get our own ideas of how to set out this, using the sheet of how long a certain shot should be for and what angle. We found it very difficult to do this exercise as we were limited to do certain angles for example at the start we couldn't do a high angle on the school as we didn't have the right equipment. Once we finished we watched the the clip, and we were able to tell the difference and how long it actually takes to do a 1 minute clip.


Other problems we had included: the use of the actual equpiment for example the tripod we used to put our cameras on were very squeeky when using a panning shot, this therefore made a squeeky noise on the video clip when one of the members in our group run across the hall way.

When doing this small exercise i've learnt a few things these consist of:
- The editing process can be fairly difficult, and that to make future editing more easy, i should try and find locations with limited background noise in them.
- If our group wants to use certain equipment it will need bookng before hand as there is limited equipment
- In order to have a smooth filming, we will have to use the tripod which ables it not to be all rough and unprofesional.
- When planning to film from scratch, i will need to consider a variety of different camera angles
- Finally we need to make sure when filming the same clip, all our actors in the group need to make sure they are weaing the same outfit if its a different day.

Overall the excersise was very helpful and got everyone thinking more about how to plan the whole sequence out step by step.