Storyboard

Horror Poster Analysis

The colours used on this poster are effective as they are dark and create mystery as it is a known fact that many people are afraid of the dark. The title of the film is put in big font in the middle bottom of the picture and the colour of the font is  a different colour to the rest of the poster. The setting of the film itself is established through the object seen on the picture which is the underground and it is clear that there are deaths in the film as there is blood on the window. A review is included at the top of the poster and the film company and certificate is at the bottom.

Organisation of Actors,Locations, Costumes & Props

Actors: After we decided on our story line we needed to consider people that could act in our trailer. Based on the audience research we did, we discovered that our target audience prefer horror trailers/films with only one victim and one villain and therefore we didn't need a great number of actors. Also, we didn't want the villain to be seen as it creates suspense and mystery so we only needed one actor. After watching previous existing horror trailers, it became clear that most victims are young women as they're more vulnerable, therefore we felt that this would be effective in our trailer. In the end one of us decided to be part of the production while the other filmed. 

Locations: We decided to film in an isolated location where we had a lot of space and privacy to experiment with different camera shots. The woods that we filmed in created suspense and we deliberately shot the trailer in a place where no one else was at the time to represent her vulnerability. We also filmed in a corridor in our college as it was accessible and there was no one around. We needed to stick posters on either side of the wall and using the shot that we did, we were able to capture this well. It was easy accessing the locations we needed to film in because we didn't need permission to use them. 

Costumes & Props: We didn't need to create or buy any special costumes for the actor to wear as we wanted the trailer to look realistic as the story line is realistic, and therefore we used ordinary clothes that a normal teenage girl would wear. The only prop we used was the poster of the main character, which we decided to stick on the walls of the corridor in our college. This prop shows that the villain is familiar with his victim as it'll appear as though he stuck the posters in a place where he knew she will see them. 

Audience Reasearch-Pearl and Dean

We used the website "PearlandDean.com" to compare our trailer and type of film with those similar which have previously been released. We decided that "The Ring" was similar as at the very beginning, the victim is a young girl, similar to what you see in our trailer. The statistics are shown below:

The ring age gender 4-6 0% male 41% 7-11 0% female 59% 12-14 0% class 15-24 9% AB 55% 25-34 41% C1 40% 35-44 15% C2 2% 45+ 35% DE 3% source: CAVIAR

As you can see, more females went to see this film than males, indicating that females would be more interested to see this type of film. This helped us to create our trailer as we used a female character and victim so that the viewer will be more able to put themselves in the position of the person they see on screen. It is also clear from these results that the age group most interested in seeing this film were aged within the 20-30 range. Therefore we had to make our storyline believable and using the idea of a stalker who then murders his victims through obsession was realistic.

The film "Creep" was also relevant to our film as in the trailer you see the victim who is a young female running away from her killer in a train station after it has closed. This is similar to our idea as our victim is also a young woman who is running away from the person who is trying to kill her and she is also isolated in her surroundings by being alone in the woods. It is also similar as you do not actually see the killer in the trailer, you have to go and see the film in order to do that. Below are the statistics we found from the Pearl and Dean website:

Creep age gender 4-6 0% male 67% 7-11 0% female 33% 12-14 0% class 15-24 42% AB 30% 25-34 22% C1 29% 35-44 21% C2 23% 45+ 15% DE 18% source: CAVIAR

As you can see from these results more men went to see this film than women unlike the previously compared film. Using ideas from this trailer to put in our own was useful as it meant that we would be able to attract both men and women to see the film. The girl in our trailer is a teenager which was also effective as it can be seen here that this age group was most interested in seeing this film. The older audience however was not that keen as only 15% went to see it and therefore we only show one person in the trailer who is a young female as it is certain that this will be the type of audience we will attract.

Questionnaire Results

The Working Script

Working script

Shot 1- Girl walks down a corridor with the camera filming her from the front using a long shot. Along the corridor on both walls are pictures of her. She slows down her pace 

as she sees the pictures. She pulls one down off of the wall and looks at it. 

Shot 2- From use of an over the shoulder shot, the viewer can see the picture of the girl as the young girl holds it in front of her. The camera zooms in on the picture and at this point the music changes and becomes more fast paced.

Shot 3- There is a jump cut showing the girl from the poster running through the woods and looking back over her shoulder as if she is being chased by somebody. use of a handheld camera and a tracking shot shows the point of view of the person who is chasing her. 

Shot 4- Subtitles come up with the words “she tried to ignore it” in a flickering font and a black background.

Shot 5- A mid shot of the girl is then shown as she is standing in front of a tree and looking around with a panicked expression as if she is hiding from someone. An effect is used here which causes the shot to be broken up and overlap itself.

Shot 6- Subtitles appear following on the previous one saying “But it won’t go away” the same effect is used as the last one.

Shot 7- A panning shot is used as if the killer is turning around quickly looking for his victim. The surroundings are quite isolated and they create suspense. As this panning shot is used there is also a change of non diegetic sound to make it sound more dramatic and emphasize fear.

Shot 8- The words “It will find you” appear on the screen in the same font and using the same effect as the previous text shots. 

Shot 9- There is a quick tracking shot of the victim running away.

Shot 10- “No matter what.” appears on the screen with a black background.

Shot 11- The shot goes back to a point of view shot of the killer using a hand held camera. He walks past the tree that the girl is hiding behind and then quickly turns around and we can see the girl on screen the camera moves in towards her as she screams showing that the killer has found her.

Shot 12- “ A live Works Film” appears on the screen using the same font and background as the previous text shown throughout the trailer. This shows the name of the production company.

Shot 13- The name of the film “Taken” is shown on the screen and the release date  with a background of a camera shot showing the sky which is used to symbolise that the murder is over.

Shot 14- A jump cut is used to then end the trailer and it takes it back to the start of the trailer where an over the shoulder shot was used to show the picture of the victim. The camera zooms in on her face and the fades along with the music. 

Our teaser trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP97NxDTLEk

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media texts?
We decided to create our teaser trailer based on forms and conventions of real media texts. For example, the story line and setting is very similar to other existing horror films. In order to do this we had to research similar teaser trailers and analyse how they used different conventions which we would be able to use in our trailer. For example, the narrative structure (text/ voice over), mise en scene, music, camera shots etc. Our teaser trailer can be compared to the horror film "Creep" because the story line is similar. It is about a girl who appears to be isolated and running away from some type of evil. However, in the trailer of "Creep" you don't see what/who she is running away from and that is what we did in our trailer. We did this because it leaves something for the audiences imagination when you don't reveal everything and makes them want to watch the actual film to find out what happens. We also decided to display quick shots of text in between parts of our trailer instead of a voice over which is the same as the Creep one. The fact that there is no voice throughout the whole trailer makes it more mysterious to the audience. Another similarity between our trailer and the creep trailer is that the music gets faster towards the end which is common in most existing horror film trailers as it creates tension. By keeping the construction of our teaser trailer similar to existing horror trailers, our target audience will feel more familiar with the trailer.

How effective is the combination of your main project and ancillary task?

Along with our teaser trailer we also created other forms of promotion which consists of a poster for our horror film and a horror film magazine cover. Our intentions of creating other media products to go with our trailer was to attract a larger audience. In order to make the products look as realistic and convincing as possible we kept the style of both products consistent. For example, the colours we used on all three products are very similar. We used a variety of red, white, grey and black shades because they are the most common colours used for horror related products and there is alot of symbolism involved. For example, red symbolises blood. We used the main character of the teaser trailer on all of the products as it makes the audience more familiar. If we had used another person, it wouldnt have been as strong. However, on the magazine cover the main character is shown in normal clothes and appears to look happy. We did this on purpose as many people like to see what actresses are like off the camera and it creates a relationship between the two. To make our combination of our teaser trailer and the other products more effective we decided to match our poster with the storyline of our trailer. For example, in the trailer it is clear to the audience that there is a girl who appears to be being chased through the woods, so for our poster we decided to put the main character in front of a background which consists of the same type of setting (trees,moon etc). This is effective as it helps the audience familiarize with the products.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

During the process of creating our media products, we recieved various audience feedback which had helped us alot when it came to making all the decisions from what the storyline was going to be about to where the setting was going to be. All the audience feedback counted as it enabled us to produce products that would attract a large audience. We decided to create questionnaires about horror trailers which we delivered on social network sites such as Facebook. This is because we wanted to find out what it was that attracted people to horror trailers and we then decided to look at the most popular options that were chosen so that we could try and use as many of them as we possibly could in our teaser trailer to gain a larger audience. For example, we decided what the storyline was going to be about before we recieved any audience feedback. However after we'd recieved the feedback we realised that the most popular setting for a horror film is the woods and so we filmed ours there. Our idea before was to film everything in a house. Also, initially our teaser trailer was going to feature two victims but when we found out that more people would be most interested in watching a horror film with one victim we changed our idea. If it wasn't for the audience feedback that we recieved, our trailer may not have been as successful.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation studies?

If we didn't have access to new media technologies during the process of planning and creating our media products it definately wouldnt have been as much of a success as it was as we relied on advanced technology to create the effects we wanted. For example, we have been using this website (http://www.blogger.com/) since the beginning of the year to create, present and update our written work which consists of our research and planning. We now know how to create a blog and upload text, images and videos. To even be able to do certain aspects of the research in the first place we needed technology. For example, to view and analyse the various horror trailers we needed access to websites on the internet such as YouTube and Google to find relevant images for our blog. Another time where we depended on new technology was when we had to film our teaser trailer as we needed the appropriate equipment such as a camcorder. It took a while learning how to use it but after reading the user's manual it got easier. Another time we used technology that was useful but hard to get used to was the programme on the iMac computers called Adobe Premiere Pro. We were able to upload our filming onto this programme so that we could cut and edit it. Lastly, we had access to Adobe Photoshop on the iMac computers where we created our magazine front cover and poster to go with our teaser trailer. Without Adobe Photoshop we wouldn't have been able to edit the background, images and text the way we wanted to and it wouldn't have looked realistic enough.

Audience Research

Questionnaire

The purpose of the audience research was to find out what audience our trailer was going to be targeted towards. In order to find this out, we had to find out from different people what they look for in a horror trailer and what their preferences are. Also, we had already developed a story idea and we needed to find out if it was suitable enough and that the majority of people would be interested in it. To find out this information, we constructed a questionnaire to do with horror trailers and we delivered it to people through social network such as Facebook. Below is our questionnaire:

1. How effective are horror trailers when used to entice you to see the film? (tick preferred answer)

Very effective     

Quite effective

Not important 

2. What type of horror film is appealing to you? 

Supernatural            

Docu-realism              

Psychological

Slasher

3. How would you prefer to hear about a horror film? 

Movie posters

Trailers

Websites 

4. What would you be interested to see and hear in a horror trailer? 

Scary moments from the film itself

Voice over telling you release dates etc.

Information displayed on the screen but not read aloud

5. What do you think would be the perfect location of a horror trailer?

Woods     

Streets

School

House 

6. Do you think there should be a main character and a killer, or a group of characters?

One main character and a villain

A group of victims and one villain

Various victims and more than one villain 

7.Do you think that music is very important within the trailer?

Very important          

Not that important

8. What props would you like to see in a horror trailer?

Knives

Blood

Costumes

Mobile phones

9. Should you be able to see the deaths in the trailers or should there be more of a mysterious theme?

Death should be seen

Mystery is more effective 

Elements of a horror trailer

The typical elements of a horror trailer determine whether it is successful or not. The certain scenes from the film itself that are displayed in the trailer are the ones which contain the most suspense to scare the viewer. 

Elements that make up horror trailers and determine the effect it will have are:

Camera angles: In many trailers, the camera is used as at tool to keep the viewer in suspense. The camera for example will use angles such as over the shoulder shots to give the impression that the character on screen is being watched. Zoom is also used to emphasize facial expressions and the emotion of fear. Tracking shots follow the characters as they run/walk giving the idea that they are being followed. A very popular camera shot used for horror trailers is the handheld camera method. This is a point of view angle from the character themselves which often involves them running and giving the impression of them running away. 

Music: The music that features in the trailer is used to set the scene and the mood. Music often changes throughout the trailer for example at the start of the sequence when the story is being set, the music is often slow and eerie so that the viewer does not get distracted by it and focuses on the story itself. As the action begins to take place, the pace of the music often increases and the dynamics get louder to give an emotion of panic. Silence is also often used in trailers to increase suspense and the power that it has on the viewer. 

Voiceover: Voiceovers tend to be used in the older trailers. Scream, Halloween and Friday the 13th are all examples of films which used voiceovers. They are effective in capturing the attention of the audiences as they often ask rhetorical questions or use phrases which will scare the audience. In more modern trailers, voiceovers are not very popular and usually the words appear on the screen but there is no sound used except for the diegetic or non diegetic sounds. This is another method used to make the trailer seem more spooky and also so that the viewer is not trying to concentrate if two things at the same time.  

Setting: The setting of each trailer and the location will portray the right feeling to the viewer. If the setting is in an American high school it will be obvious that the film is based around young teenagers. Many horror films are based around places which are isolated to everybody else so that the film is focused around these particular characters. The feeling of isolation also increases suspense as more events can happen without anyone else being aware. 

Magazine front cover

We decided to make the magazine cover  the complete opposite of the movie poster as we wanted to experiment with different styles and not just stick to a horror style only. Also, our target audience and most people in general like to read real life interviews/stories so we decided to use a normal image of the main character of the film for the front page to give a sense of reality, instead of using an image from one of the movie scenes. We used photoshop to cut around the main characters photo so that we could later on add our choice of background around it. We chose to use this effect to make it look like an actual real magazine cover, as on most magazine covers you can tell that the main image has been cut from it’s original background. We chose colours such as red, black and white because the red symbolizes gore and blood and the black also links in with the element of horror and creates a sense of mystery. We used white for certain parts of the magazine to enable some of the text to stand out from the more darker shades such as black and grey. We made the font on the magazine cover very large and bold so that it makes more of an impact and is eye-catching. We used sub headings such as “MASSIVE PREVIEW SPECIAL” and “45 New Movies you Need to See” because its persuasive and will make people want to read the magazine and that’s the whole aim of a magazine cover.