Production Diary

Draft Horror poster

This was the first version of my Horror poster. I chose to re-create it as I felt that it was too vague as to the content of our trailer and as a result, the text wouldn't work well to promote the film. I also felt that the poster wasn't sinister enough to portray the mood of the trailer as it consists primarily of white and red tones. Whilst this kind of colour scheme was used in posters such as Let Me In, the creation process of my poster in this case made it look more posterised and not as 'real' as that of  'Let Me In'. I liked how there was a figure visible in the treeline but feedback told me that this was sometimes missed- a risk I didn't want to take as it determined the success of my main product.

Draft Magazine Cover

Preliminary Horror Trailer- Grave Encounters

Horror Plot Idea Moodboard

Recces and Location Scouting

 Bedford Street- Norwich

 Bedford Street- Norwich (In relation to Norwich City)

 Gunton Wood- Lowestoft (in proximity to Tesco car-park)

 Gunton Wood- Lowestoft (in relation to Lowestoft)

Fritton Lake- Fritton (In relation to accessibility through main roads and potential parking)

Story-Board

Production Schedule

Magazine Sketch

Poster Sketch

Impact of Research

How Has Research Impacted On Our Idea?

Genre

For our trailers, the genre we chose was Horror. We then elaborated on this by creating a sub-genre for the trailer to get a more in-depth understanding of our plot idea and conventional horror. This impacted our original as it led to us creating a Psychological Horror. The psychological influence comes from our villain’s beliefs and motives and his emotional instability as well as his obsession with hating the police due to his back-story. This connection makes our plot a mystery to the audience, as they will not be able to comprehend his insanity from the trailer alone. Research led us down the route of typical low-budget slasher films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and whilst we appreciated how well this form of horror was recieved, we didn't want to go down the gore-heavy path but instead opt for a more tense thriller kind of product as we believed that these are becoming more popular to an increasingly desensitised audience.

Narrative

Our Narrative is loosely based on Tsvetan Todorov‘s “Classical Hollywood Narrative” Theory. This creates the basis of the plot and a chronological story which the audience can follow. Counter-parting the typical narrative of equilibrium, disequilibrium, recognition and new equilibrium, we have taken this theory and made a different stereotype, creating an equilibrium, recognition and disequilibrium. This impacted our idea so we could create a more versatile plot with some more intricate ideas. As we were only making a trailer we wanted to reflect this structure in a way that wouldn't reveal the ending/outcome as this would render the point of seeing the full film mute. As a group, we agreed that by starting the trailer with a hand-held shot would throw the audience into the action and immediate;y create a sense of tension and anticipation and we wanted to use a voice-over to explain to the audience what was happening- this was a reflection of Francios Truffaut's explanation of Bordwell and Thompson's use of narrative to build suspense whereby it was explained  that to build suspense in the audience, they must be informed as to the 'what' and possibly 'where' but not when. If the audience knows there is a danger that will affect people but they are unaware then they will be more intrigued and interlinked to the film to wait out a conclusion to it. It was argued that this approach was far better accepted and made for a better film than not telling the audience and having several seconds of surprise compared to minutes of tension.

Representation

The representation we analysed was on Carol Clovers “Final Girl” Theory, This representation helped us to create our main character and make it fit with the plot. Using the final girl theory, we implemented androgynous traits to our female protagonist, this shows that she isn’t a typical girl in a horror film who will die because she is aware of her surroundings due to her lack of sexual activity and so pays attention to her surroundings which keeps her alert to danger. Unlike the 'typical female' which is often sexually provocative, an androgynous female has a uni-sex name and with her masculinity traits she fights back against the villain in various ways to find her escape. We chose to incorporate the final girl into our trailer so as to give the audience somebody they could relate to as this will keep theor interest in our film.

Audiences and Institutions

Focusing on our target audience, our primary audience is based on the younger generation, with the age certificate our film at a 15. This allows for only low-levels of fantasy gore, instead of normal to hard-core gore but as we were not aiming for a slasher movie, this was not a problem. 
By lowering the age rating, this makes the film more accessible to other potential audience members,  as they can relate to our protagonist and are able to handle the plot. Our secondary audience is for ages over 25+, as this is a horror film at such a low age rate this will mainly focus on the primary audience range from 15-21.

Media Languages

Media language helped build our knowledge of creating and visualising an idea and plot for our film. Finding out which Camera Shots worked best was important to get our point across. Using Cinematography helped the group include varied shots such as Tracking Shot, Point Of View, Close Up, Over The Shoulder, Long Shot etc. This will help create an intricate view for the trailer creating a momentum build up with the included editing within the transactions and music surrounding the trailer. Editing will play a huge part in the focus of creating transaction fades with sound bridges to understand dialogue over the dramatic music which will add drama and effect to the build up to the ending scene that will be a featured key insight to the synopsis, but not giving to much away. This will include all the different takes that the trailer will feature but also to hint things to the plot within split seconds if the audience can pick up on them. Sound will be minimum such as ambient, diegetic, sound bridge, sound mixing and non-diegetic. This is to create the tension and upbringing of the trailer throughout the duration it is played for creating key movement scenes through the film to create the audience engaged in watching the film/trailer, tension such as doors creaking and sudden noises will keep the audience off their toes to create the imitation of the being that stalks the main protagonist.   

Final Trailer

Questionnaire

Create your own user feedback survey 

We created a Questionnaire so we could find out what our audiences really looked for in a horror trailer so we could make the best possible product that appeals to their tastes. We believe that the results that we will get from it will be fundamental in helping us to set goals on what to achieve and what look to go for.

Analysis of our Questionnaire

Individual Idea

2010:
An 11 year old girl (Alice) runs into an abandoned house after her dog escaped his collar- ahead of her parents. She explores and finds the dog sniffing around the body of a dead teenage girl in a basement of an abandoned house. The dead girl is the little girl's missing sister, Lilith that disappeared 9 years ago neither she or her abductor was found- until now.

2017:
With the case still open Alice tries to find answers about her sister and notices a figure following her
after school daily and that he appears to be following her home. She traces her sisters last known day from her home to a corner shop and see's the figure at the end of the road taking photos of her. She chases him into a warehouse where she loses sight of him- she goes into an office type room and see's  the walls covered in photos of her mixed in with ones of her sister which have red 'X's' through them. Something drops to the floor behind her and she spins round and gets knocked out by the figure with a pole. She wakes up tied to a bed with a selection of knives next to her and the figure selecting them carefully.
She asks who they are and what they want and the figure turns to reveal her sister- alive- who explains that their parents had tried to kill her as a cult sacrifice but she escaped and that now Alice is 18 they will do the same thing again; this time finishing the job to gain access to what they believe will bring them a higher power.
Lilith unties Alice and introduces her to Martin, Lilith's companion who is part of an organisation trying to take down the murderous cult her parents are part of.
Sending Alice back into the house as a form of bait is the only option and Martin and Lilith plan to rescue her and reveal the whole thing with the help of the Organisation named Phoenix. 
The ceremony goes ahead but as Martin and Lilith sneak in they are intercepted by Cult members and a fight ensues whereby Martin is beheaded and Lilith is stabbed in the side but struggles to help Alice.
As Lilith reaches the Alter, the clan leader is raising the knife above his head ready for the sacrifice and as the knife comes down Lilith pushes him aside, knocking over a candelabra in the process- setting the room on fire. Alice is able to go to Lilith but she dies as she gets there, leaving Alice to face her parents on her own.

Draft Trailer

Horror Trailer Analysis

Script

Shot List

Budgeting plan

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does my media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?

Film Distributors

The role of a film distributor is to market the film. they have overall say on when are were the film stands most chance of being successful, looking at the films target audience they ensure that they will become and remain interested in the film and pay to see the film upon its release. Many distributors will use different strategies when it comes to marketing and advertising, based off of their own personal experiences and research. Many opt for outdoor methods such  billboards on the side of busy roads or the side of buildings as well as bus shelters and posters as well as the use of advertising through other platforms such as television adverts, radio clips, websites, social media and chat shows as well as the most common trailers in cinema's.
This allows the film to be exposed to the public and it's target audience in such a way that is personal enough to them to get the message. This then allows the product to be shared on social media and through recommendations by people as word of mouth, and raise awareness of the film before it's even released. 

This period is crucial to conduct audience research as a film distributor, as the right methods much be conducted in order to come in on-budget and reach the target audience as effectively and efficiently as possible.
To reach out to a teenage audience for example, the advertisement would be heavily social media based for example, as this age group is shown to be the most educated in the software and have a deeper understanding of how it works than someone in their 60's would.

To attract elderly people to a film, radio and newspaper advertisements would be some of the most effective to use as they take little effort to use and they would have grown up with them and as a result use these products more.
We recognized that the marketing differed greatly from film to film, and this is due to the variation in its target demographic. For a film aimed at young women, having an ad in a motoring magazine would not be relevant as stereotypically, they are not likely to ever open such a product- the ad would be better suited in Heat or Grazia for example.
Our trailer would be widely published on social media to target the teenagers that use it frequently but also on late-night TV s
hows where the slightly older audience will be present- in between chat shows for example would work well- as would adverts on the side of buses as everyone sees them daily so there would be no escaping the campaign.

Some films take a completely different approach and fill up every possible platform to reach as many people as possible- over a variety of methods and means, regardless of their deceptive or tricking ways.
Deadpool was such a film and its advertisement campaign was one of the most diverse in history 2015. Below are some of the forms that their advertisement took:

Deadpool was a relatively recent and very successful film, with one of the most talked about advertisement campaigns of 2015-2016. The approach in terms of marketing was funny and smart which really reflected the film's sense of dark humor- relevant to the 15 age certificate.
The valentines conventions in its initial marketing was extremely clever as it opened up the film in terms of comedic value to the audience.
By targeting valentines day audiences, they have increased the likelihood of reaching people from outside of their original target audience and thus introducing a whole new category of people to the super-hero genre who may have been otherwise unaware.
Furthermore, the emoji billboard was an especially clever idea as it opened up the film to a younger generation that will understand the whole point of what the emoji's are trying to say. This also conjures up the idea that the film is going to be modern and make relative points and jokes- as the other ad campaigns portray just how humorous the film is despite its gore.
Whilst the emoji board will attract the attention of younger audiences, due to the certificate 15, the production and marketing company had to be caution as to what they put where. This was solved- in part- through the use of social media.
Social media adverts can be tailored to the kind of audience that they are shown to- as a result the distributors of Deadpool could reference the more sexually explicit content of the film through the use of posters- as can be seen in the above montage. By excluding anyone under 15 (according to Facebook settings) from their outreach, they had free range to post what they liked without the fear of being penalised for it.
One of the most acclaimed points of the Deadpool advertisement campaign was that it gave away almost nothing of the main plot of the film- instead having Wade, the main character 'talk' to the audience as well as having the trailer mainly focus on one fight scene so as to not give too much away in terms of overall plot and outcome.

The distribution plans for Deadpool was far from that of the conventional forms that companies undertake but it was because of this that it was a very successful- According to Box Office Mojo, Deadpool has earned $754.5 million globally. This is probably due to the outreach that the film had over a massive range of audience types; the valentines audience, younger audiences and the original Marvel fans.

As you can see from the variation in marketing techniques used in the Deadpool advertising- sometimes it is beneficial to strya from the usual conventions of the film industry. However, there is the constant concern that the 'new' methods will not be as successful as that shown by Deadpool and that is a very significant risk. As my Horror trailer is not as highly anticipated as the likes of Deadpool, I have chosen to conform to the more conventional strtegy of posters and magazines to publicate my work. Whilst I may have seen a success through more unconventional means, my research has shown that the more traditional routes can be just as effective with a good combination of the main product and strong ancillary texts to support it, and this is what I chose to do.

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Evaluation 3; What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience trailer feedback; Capture

Feedback sheets; Capture.

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?

Final Product; Horror Poster

Poster Comparison & Inspiration

In my research of Ancillary texts, I scrutinised many posters for elements that appealed to me and that I believed made the product really stand out to me.

Final Product; Magazine Cover

Magazine Cover Comparison & Inspiration

In my research of Ancillary texts, I scrutinised many magazines for elements that appeared to me and that I believed made the magazine really stand out.

Risk Assessment

Talent Release Forms

Location Release forms