Our Magazine front cover

Storyboards

Our first storyboard. We decied that the scenes in this were too long, and didnt create the right effect for what we wanted, the scenes were to long, and to much of the narrative was given away.

The complete storyboard

Ideas for magazine front cover

We decided to use the bottom image as we felt it was more close up, and this made the effect more intimate, it allowed us to zoom in for the front cover, so the whole image was the back ground, and we could superimpose the text.

What is a trailer?

Ideas for our trailer

We used the popular television programme 'Big Brother' and the successful film series 'Saw' as inspirations for our film. We combined the two ideas to create the narrative of our horror. We used the 'Big Brother' setting, a group of contestants who live in a house together, and complete tasks for rewards. However we slightly subverted the conventions of the show and decided it would take place within 24 hours. We then used the 'Saw' idea of gruesome, pain staking tasks that people have to complete to survive. Therefore we have the idea, of often deadly tasks taking place within a 'Big Brother' environment, and this creates the narrative for our horror.

We also used the idea of the antagonists in 'Saw' as inspiration ( as shown above). We therefore decided that our antagonist would use the mask, whilst "in character' as the 'Big Brother'. This creates a kind of split personality, the human man behind the mask, and the mask itself which is a kind of characture of the antagonist.  

Screenplay

[1.1] INT. THE HOUSE

The whole group sits around. Voyeuristic camera looking down. They are being watched.

[1.2] INT. THE HOUSE

The whole group. Same positions. Jacob leaves.

(LIVE THE DREAM IN 24 HOURS...)

[1.3] EXT. CCTV CAMERA


[1.4] INT. THE HOUSE


Jess looks at camera.


(ENJOY THE FAME FOREVER)


[1.5] INT. THE HOUSE




Girls brace in corner


[1.6] INT. THE HOUSE


Both girls look to the right


[1.7] INT. THE HOUSE


Close up of jessica


[1.8] INT. THE HOUSE


Jess turns to face camera.


[1.9] INT. THE HOUSE


Jess is dragged


[2.0] EXT. ANTAGONISTS ROOM


He talks to 'The House'


[2.1] INT. THE HOUSE


Girls back away


[2.2] INT. THE HOUSE


Jess is dragged


[2.3] INT. THE HOUSE


Girls sit down, scared.


[2.4] INT. THE HOUSE


Girls back away


[2.5] INT. THE HOUSE


Jess turns to face camera


[2.6] INT. THE HOUSE


 Close ups of protagonists, and antagonist, quick succession. 


(INFAMOUS)


[2.7] INT. THE HOUSE


Jump scare, girls back away, slow motion.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For our trailer, we started by analysing a wide range of existing horror films so that we could get an idea of what it was we wanted to portray in ours, what conventions we liked, and which we were likely to subvert.
We decided that a convention that was particularly important for teaser trailers, was to not give away to much of the narrative, and thought this was integral for the the task. For this reason, we only show the antagonist at the end of the trailer, before the title, as this not only creates mystery but also builds tension for the audience.
Although many of the trailers we looked at used voice overs, we decided that the 'Paranormal Activity 2' trailer was succesful without, and decided that it would create a more naturalistic feel for our trailer.
We found that a lot of trailers included the convention of a 'Jump scare' shot after the title of the film, this leaves an audience with a lasting impression and also takes them by suprise. We feel we did this very well with our trailer, and the slow motion effect along with the music creates quite a disturbing image, which is inkeeping with the horror genre.
A number of our camera shots are conventional of horror trailers. For example, we placed a camera behind the protagonist at flat level and got her to turn around to face the camera, we then slowed it down, we found this was very effective and also quite common in horror trailers.
The mise-en-scene of our trailer is indicative of the horror genre, we used dark lighting and neutral colours to create an eery, bland effect so that nothing was to bright. The mask of the antagonist is also black which connotes darkness and evil.
We used several edits throughout the trailer to create our desired effect, and one that would parallel real media texts. We used transitions through certain shots where we didn't want the edits to be as harsh, this helped the trailer run more smoothly. We also had to edit the sound of the trailer, as we merged two tracks together. This meant we had to cut the first track in order to fit in the second, and then bring the first back in at the end. Music change is conventional in horror trailers as it helps build tension, as the shots quicken so does the music and this creates an adrenaline like rush of music.

For our poster, we did the same kind of research and tried to look at a wide variety of horror posters, our poster therefore uses many of the conventions of real media texts. We used the conventional black and red colours for our poster which is indicative of the genre, therefore an audience will know straight away what type of film the poster is advetising. We placed the title at the top of the poster as we felt it drew more attention to it, especially against the black background of the image. We used the tagline that is also used in the trailer, this links the two texts together and gives it a sense of continuity. We included the release date of the film aswell as the BBFC certificate as this highlights our target audience and advertises the opening weekend of the film. We used photoshop to edit the photo slightly so that it wasnt just a harsh image, we blurred the outlines and darkened the colours to make the poster look more professional.

'One Missed Call'
This poster is very similiar to ours. It used the image as the focal point, and we assume it's the antagonist which parallels our poster. It also uses the similiar colours
and the plain black background. Our heading was placed at the top and the tagline at the bottom, we felt that for our image this was better positioning and it made the writing stand out more. One thing we noticed is that the release date was placed right at the bottom and almost out of sight, we felt that the release date is crucial information and so we decided to make ours more visable.

'Hatchet'

Again another horror poster using a simple image as the focal point and the black background. It uses white writing very similiar to ours, and the red colour is used in the image rather than the typography. They have again put the title at the bottom and the tagline at the top, like the previous poster.

'Indiana Jones'
In contrast we researched other genre films, here we have an action/ adventure film. The colours are much brighter and the use of yellow connotes happiness, sunshine and innocence, wheres as the black and red in horror posteres connotes gore and violence. There are much more characters illustrated on this poster as it's a collection of films, more characters are introduced into the narrative, then perhaps a horror, where a good number of the cast will die before the film ends. The technical conventions however are very similiar, all the information and credits are still placed at the bottom along with the release date and the title.

We wanted to make our magazine front cover look as professional as possible. We analyzed proffesional texts such as Empire so we could base our layout on real texts. We wanted to create a sense of house style and feel we were succesful in doing this. We included a website and price above the barcode of our magazine as it made it look professional. We noticed that many other magazines used free products as a way of attracting their audiences, so we offered a free poster from our feature film, similar to that on the cover. We decided that 'Focus' was an effective name for a film magazine. It's bold and unique, and indicates that an audience should "focus" on our magazine. The tagline underneath the masthead plays on the title of the magazine, and this adds a light hearted feel in contrast to the horror film advertised on the front. We used the 'Plus...' and 'Sneak Peak' as their typical conventions of magazine, it indicates to an audience what else they can expect from the magazine without flicking through the whole magazine. The "How to..." feature is a direct link to our horror film. It's a way of involving the audience whilst also tying it in with our featured film, and the narrative of our film. We choose to use a variety of colours for the text as we noticed this was effective in real magazines, it makes the cover look more exciting, but we used similar colours so as to make sure it didnt over power the image on the front.

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

We feel that the combination of our main product and our ancillary tasks is very effective and professional. Our poster is a direct link to the antagonist in our trailer, with the use of the mask. The iconography of the mask represents the 'evil' side of the antagonist, when he is in character for our made up 'Big Brother' house. The title of the poster and the title on the trailer are both in red as it conforms to the horror genre, we also place the date at the bottom of the screen in the trailer, and the bottom of the poster, and they are both in white to stand out against the black backgrounds.

The main picture on our magazine is that of the protagonist Jessica. The shot almost looks like a "mug shot" like the ones taken before you enter the 'Big Brother' house. We thought this was effective as it subverts the usual happy, smiling images you see for this kind of show, which hints to the audience the narrative of our film.

One of the plugs on the magazine cover reads "How to pass an audition..". We felt this was very clever and effective as it is a direct link to the narrative of the trailer, auditions are necessary to partake in a 'Big Bother' experience and we felt this quirky tag would attract attention, it also again makes the magazine more light hearted and fun to contrast with the horror genre, and this makes the magazine appeal to a wider audience.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Initially, before creating our trailer, we created a questionnaire in order to find out what kind of horror films people went to watch, how old they were, and where they were likely to see them. Most people were between the ages of 15 and 30, and this gaves us our basis for our target demographic. We then discovered that the majority liked psychological trailers and isolated areas, when questionned further most argued that isolated areas were better as it builds tension and the outcome is unpredictable, psychological horrors allowed an audience to predict outcomes and to try and double guess the film. This helped us to come up with the idea of the isolated 'Big Brother' house and the gory tasks. Our results also showed that many people preferred large casts as is made the film less predictable.

We then researched other horror films on the 'Pearl and Dean' website, and this gaves us an idea as to the audience breakup that were most likely to watch our film. The age range was very similar to that of questionnaire results and we therefore decied on 18 as our certificate age. This meant that we could build the narrative around this, all the "contestants" would be around this age and appeal to this demographic.

From our audience feedback we found that they liked the pacing of our trailer, the slow shots added an eery effect which they audience liked. We used conventions of the horror genre, but nothing to predictable and this kept the audience interested. They liked the narrative of the trailer and the idea for the film as a whole. The magazine looked "professional", realistic and looked good alongside real media texts.

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

The majority of our finished product involved the use of new media technoligies. The construction of our trailer was done mainly through Final Cut Pro and Motion. Final Cut Pro meant that we had to get the footage from the camera onto the Final Cut Pro software and then edit. Many problems arose during this, like dropped frames, but we managed to find ways around it, and eventually got all the footage onto the software. We used transitions to fade in and our of certain shots where we didn't want the edit to be as harsh, it allowed the shots to flow more smoothly. We slowed down some of the shots to create an eery effect, at one point a character looks directly at the camera and back away comepltly unaware, we slowed it down as we thought it was a very effective shot and outlined the voyeuristic narrative of the film. We speed up a number of shots towards the end of the trailer as this is a convention of horror trailers, it allows the momentum of the trailer build up to a climax, which in our case and conventionally, is the title of the film.

Photoshop was used for both the poster and the magazine front cover, this was a particularly daunting task and none of us had ever used the software before, however with consistant use and help from our peers, we managed to create succesful, proffescional images. For our magazine, we edited several images (which you can see in our research and planning) and asked our fellow workers which they preferred and eventually decided on an image. We edited them by darkening the colour, and adding more contrast, this made the colours darker and more harsh and we felt this made the image a lot scarier. For the poster, we edited one definate image, the mask is symbolic in the narative of the film and we therefore felt it was important that it was represented in the ancillary tasks, it's the iconography of the 'evil' side of the antagonist.  We made the outlines of the image slightly more blurry to make it look less like a mask, this keeps the poster ambiguous and intriguing for an audience.

We used Garageband to create the music for our trailer, due to the copyright on other souces such as Youtube. At first we found this very difficult, as it took a lot of searching and editing to get the music suitable for our trailer, however i think they end product works very well with the trailer, and the pacing of the edits.

In our research and planning we used several media. We used Pages to print out storyboards and drafts of our completed work. We then took pictures of the storyboards using a standard digital camera and uploaded them onto blogger. We also used pages to create a mind map of 'What is a trailer?' and used a video camera and an interactive whiteboard to film it, we felt this was more entertaining to watch and allowed us to add a more interactive and personal feel to our blog.

In our evaluation we used the same techniques as we used for the trailer, we used a camera and final cut pro to edit out evaluation. We used Keynote to make the presentation we used, and got got imaged from the internet and still images from our own work. We then uploaded the videos on to Youtube and linked them to the blog.