Evaluation Question 4

We used a range of media technologies in the construction of our projects, based on previous knowledge of editing software from our products last year in the planning and research stages of our project we knew that we would use software such as iMovie, iTunes and websites such as YouTube. The software we used most was iMovie, we would upload clips that we had filmed on our Flip Camera and were able to edit elements such as the time of the clip, the colour filter and sound. 

From researching teaser trailers, especially focusing on sound using YouTube we did many sound deconstructions of teaser trailers, from this we identified what we felt worked well and which elements we wanted to try and recreate in our own teaser trailer. Furthermore from our survey results we asked the question which sound effects the audience would prefer and from this we based our decision concluded that the best sound to use was a slow creepy backing music to be played throughout, we also thought that music such as nursery rhymes/jewellery box could come across as quite sinister as connotations of this is quite innocent young girls playing with a jewellery box, however we would be subverting this as our main protagonist the this girl coming back to haunt her mother. In the construction of our teaser trailer with regards to sound, we inserted clips from other sources such as SoundCloud and Youtube, we sourced the music that we wanted and downloaded our chosen clips such as the nursery rhyme and fast-paced music we used for the montage. We inserted them on to iTunes and then proceeded to import them on to iMovie and inserted the clips in the correct positions.

We used wix.com to create our own website, from the numerous website deconstructions we had done we followed these conventions by embedding the trailer to start automatically, the links and social media links at the top of the website along with critic reviews at the bottom.




We sourced our typography from a website called ‘DaFont’, where we could choose and create our own text on a font generator. We were very specific on the type font we wanted as we wanted the typography to fit in with our plot. We wanted to seek out a gothic type traditional serif font; we found this on da font, as our colour scheme was more of a classic traditional horror theme we wanted the typography to match this.

 Once we had taken the picture of the eye that we chose to use for our poster and website, we then had to edit this, initially we used iPiccy to distort our image of the eye, by using the blurring tool we distorted the image of the eye, so it had a ‘glazy’ effect and by changing the contrast however, we did not feel we had achieved a professional outcome by using this, therefore we decided to use Photoshop to edit the eye further, we realised it was a much more advanced software, this enabled us to create a more professional and authentic outcome, by carefully selecting the area of the eye we wanted to blur and distort, yet sharpen the bordering parts of the eye which provided us with a clearer contrast which we didn't have before. Photoshop also aided us in being able to edit the colours of pictures and text to fit in with our theme. Tools on Photoshop allowed us to completely change the images and make them conform to our theme and desired outcome.





Throughout our project we have used Blogger, to document our work at every different stage, from initial research, to planning and construction. Our blog posts let us show our progress in every aspect, and explain what techniques we have used and why. 

In the research stages of our project, we created a survey using Survey Monkey, this allowed us to receive audience feedback on the questions we were asking, to aid us in decision making for more specific elements such as the backing music for our trailer. From the survey results we were able to make some decisions such as having a female protagonist instead of male. Some answers we received however we chose not to use as they did not fit in with our planned theme, and would be irrelevant, such as choices of music for our teaser trailer. 

Evaluation Question 2

Our main product is our teaser trailer that we have created as a group, this was the most time consuming product of all three, we also produced a website and film poster. 

To make all three products appear as authentic and realistic as possible we have tried to keep the same theme with regards to colour scheme, typography and pictures; throughout our projects.From researching existing horror film trailers, posters and websites, we found that more recent colour schemes included more clinical colours such as blue, green and white. We decided to subvert this convention and conform to more classic horror colour schemes, using reds, blacks and white, which we used throughout our projects, on our website, teaser trailer and poster. 
Some examples of the classic colour scheme being used in horror posters:

Some examples of more modern horror posters:

                            

The colour scheme we chose gives off more bloody, evil connotations, which we felt could look more effective than following the common modern colour scheme, these colours are also associated with more religious elements which again was an initial idea of ours when considering the plot and colour scheme.

Our typography was hard to construct, as we had a specific idea of font in mind, we envisioned a more classic font as opposed to more modern horror typography. We created our typography on ‘DaFont’ which we selected from a list of different fonts under the ‘horror’ genre, as there were many fonts to choose from it took us a long time to make a final decision on a suitable font. Once we had downloaded the font on to Photoshop, we used the text tool to type out ‘Ultionem’, we then edited the colours to fit in with our theme, as it was black text on a white background and we inverted this so it would conform to the rest of our project where we have white text on a black background. 

The ‘O’ in Ultionem has a dot in the middle, we found this interesting as a recurring theme in our project is eyes, in our teaser trailer we have clips of eyes and in our poster and website we have used the same image of an eye, we felt this would tie in effectively and continue the theme even further. 

Our teaser trailer is also on our website and it automatically plays when the website link is clicked on, this allows the audience to watch the trailer straight away, without clicking on another link. The picture we used for our poster and website was an eye which also linked in to the re-occurring theme of eyes throughout our projects, this made all the –products recognisable and cohesive as a whole.The picture that we used for our main poster was an eye which we had edited on iPiccy and Photoshop, we also used this picture on our website and also our blog, the picture is of an eye, which is also a recurring theme in our teaser trailer. This shows continuity throughout our project, and makes our main product and ancillary texts cohesive.  The reason we chose to have eyes as a theme in our project is because from doing previous research into horror films we found that body parts are frequently used as pictures for posters and websites. We also felt in initial stages of planning and research, as our sub-genre is supernatural and theories state that the deceased ‘look over’ the living, an eye would be an appropriate picture to choose. 

 

From doing research into horror film websites, we observed that they included certain main elements such as critic’s reviews, name of the film, teaser trailer, tabs and a picture. To make our own website authentic we decided to conform to this convention, by including these features in our own project. By having a certain amount of features on one page, this also helps the viewer to focus on the main attractions to the plot, if the website is over-crowded it distracts from the more important elements of the page. Another feature we included on our website was social networking links; this also made our website more realistic and is also a very popular and successful form of advertising, used in the majority of films released nowadays. To keep the continuity throughout our project, we also included the tag-line on all three of our media products; this made it easily identifiable for the audience, creating consistency throughout our teaser trailer and ancillary texts.

Evaluation Question 1

Conventions of a teaser trailer

In our media project as a whole, many different elements conform to the codes and conventions of real media products and stereotypical features. For example throughout our main teaser trailer and ancillary texts we have followed a classic horror colour scheme of red, black and white, which we have included in all three pieces. In our trailer we have conformed to stereotypical horror elements such as including a fast paced montage to create tension and to engage the audience, this is common in horror teaser trailers to entice the audience and make them curious about the film itself. We have also inserted titles into our teaser trailer which subverts conventions of horror trailers, but we thought it would give the audience a wider insight into the plot to gain a better understanding as when teaser trailers are very ambiguous a viewer can get confused or just not care for the story.
From in depth research of sound incorporated into film teaser trailers, we found that common conventions of horror teaser trailers were to include an eerie sound clip to create tension and an atmosphere. We decided to include this in our own teaser trailer and play this clip throughout, we researched different sound clips on SoundCloud and YouTube, found an appropriate clip , downloaded it on to iTunes then proceeded to import it on to iMovie. We also did this for the montage section of our teaser trailer, we sampled a range of clips from YouTube and layered them on iMovie to create a fast- paced tension building piece, reflecting the montage; we conformed to the common convention of using a montage in our teaser trailer. We also conformed to common horror teaser trailer stereotypes by including an authentic element such as a news report and a 911 phone call, by using real footage we felt this made the plot seem more real to the audience which subsequently makes it more interesting.

Conventions of subject/plot – subgenre

One way in which we subverted common horror stereotypes of real media products was that we picked a very taboo subject to focus on; we chose a child haunting her mother and seeking revenge for her murder. Murder of a child is quite an unmentionable subject so we thought this would put an interesting spin on our plot. We chose to use ‘Twisted Pictures’ production company in our teaser trailer, the common connotations of it are scary horror films, as films produced previously by this company include all of the Saw films(2003-2012) and The Tortured(2010). Twisted Pictures are an independent production company and are most well known for producing Saw; we conformed to the expectations of the production company, as our teaser trailer and ancillary texts are of the same genre to films produced by Twisted Pictures previously.

Conventions of poster

With regards to our poster we followed quite a traditional horror layout, horror film posters are usually portrait, and as we had a big main focal point for our poster we decided we would also use this orientation. We placed the typography at the top so it is legible and easy for a viewer to see against the background, the credits are normally a more irrelevant part of the poster which we also found so we put the credits at the bottom of the page in smaller font. By following these stereotypical conventions we found it made the poster look more authentic and professional.
The name we chose for our project is ‘Ultionem’ this is a Latin word which translates to mean revenge; we thought this was a relevant name as names of horror films usually reflect the feelings of the main protagonist or the plot; this ties in with our plot as the theme of our project is revenge on a murdered child’s mother. 

A common convention of horror film names is also to have a one or two word title to make a bigger impact on the audience and make the name more memorable. We also thought having a Latin name would be effective, as it tied in with our original ideas of including a religious element in our plot, as this is a common convention of horror films. This also has evil connotations as from our research we found that horror films that included elements such as murder or possession for example, included a religious spin on the plot; this includes films such as The Devil Inside, The Last Exorcism and The Rite.

Conventions of website

From doing research into existing horror film websites, we found that not all horror films have a website; however the bigger, more successful film’s websites follow stereotypical conventions. This includes elements such as a main picture, name of the film, critic’s reviews, hyperlinks, tabs and the main teaser trailer. We decided, to make our own website look authentic we wanted to follow and conform to this stereotypical convention and include the same elements on our website, as not to over crowd the page and divert from the main elements. We also included the main picture we had been using throughout our project on our poster to keep up continuity in our teaser trailer and ancillary texts, another feature we included on the website; which is a stereotypical convention of any film nowadays, is social networking links such as Twitter, Facebook and Google. This is a really good form of advertising and now the internet has become so wide-spread and avidly used by younger audiences especially, it is a popular form of promotion. From our research we found that more modern horror films have incorporated a more clinical and cold colour scheme by using blues, greens and white, we subverted this convention of horror film colour schemes on the website was by using more traditional gothic typography and including more classic horror colours such as red, white and black.

Evaluation Question 3

How your audience feedback influenced the decisions made in your productions?

Firstly, we all discussed and brainstormed the theme of the teaser trailer. Many different themes were brought up and discussed as we wanted to pick the perfect one. We first realised we were going to make a horror teaser trailer, but the main decision was what sub-genre to choose. We looked closely  into posession and religion, looking at past and current films that were released. For example, we looked closely  into the paranormal activity films and child related films such as orphan. After this initial research we decided to create a survey on survey monkey online. We further sent this out to friends and family within our age range and waited for replies. After this we analysed the results and used them to form our storyline and plot of our teaser trailer.

• We researched different genres of horror film and narrowed it down to just a few sub-genres
• Asked this question above on survey monkey, got responses and supernatural came out the most popular.
• We then looked into conventions of supernatural films and teaser trailers.
• By taking the advice of the survey results we based it all on supernatural horror
• We filmed scenes such as the staring over the bed and the bath scene which involve supernatural power
• By editing the footage filmed we could create effects, such as by reversing the smoke backwards back into her mouth this looks supernatural
• 
• \We played alot of teaser trailers on youtube and researched what location they were set in, we quickly realise that they varied and alot of them had a mixed selection in just one trailer. From this we decided to have a mixed location to be interesting.
• From the survey results the top two locations were home and graveyard, so we decided to have a combination of the two.
• In filming, we filmed panning shots to show graveyard location and we also filmed scenes in the bedroom and other rooms within her family house. This gives a close to home freaky feel to the teaser trailer
• We edited the clips so that the locations were shown, we had a panning shot on the graveyard and it was fully showcased and in the house it was clearly shown that it had different rooms such as the bed was shown in the bedroom.

• We looked at past and present teaser trailers and noticed that many of them had captions and subtitles within their teaser trailer, that shows small lines of text, often giving away small details of the plot
• We added a question in the survey relating to this and the results came out that they would like this
• When we was editing we added in black screens and entered in white text in time to our police 911 call sound

Poster Editing

The poster is a very important part of the trio of promotion, we used the same font for the title which was imported using photoshop. The eye was also distorted and blurred using photoshop iris blur. The eye ball its self was in focus with the rest of the photo being out of focus. Creating a realistic effect, especially the blood. The text at the bottom was all typed and positioned in photoshop and the logos were imported on there too.

Website Editing

For the website, we performed several different tasks. Firstly, Creating the colour scheme which was the red and black. Mainly because these are generic colours for horror movies and their websites which we found from research. Then we had to download the font for our title "ultinoem" and import that into the website. All of this was done using WIX editor online. Then the tag line was typed and the font was chosen.

Then using the editor tools we imported and positioned the youtube video of our teaser trailer into the centre of the website. This is extremely important to have in prime position on the website as it is the most important factor of our promotion.

The Image on the left of the website was editied online and then the edges were faded on photoshop. This was imported and positioned in an irregular place than websites we had researched.

Music Editing

This is where we imported the music for the teaser trailer, again using the sliders we moved around the balances and levels of the music to make it most effective and horror themed. Volume was also changed. we also muted the sounds from the original clip to give a clearer sound of the music.

Colour Editing

In this certain still shot of our antagonist, we zoomed in close up to get a better view of the makeup and styling of the character. To make her look even more pale, we played around with the contrast and brightness of the image. This is all done through the easy to use tab by sliders. By increasing the brightness, we could make her skin whiter which gives a more horror effect.

Panning Editing

We used a panning shot for the graveyard shot in the early stages of our teaser trailer, we moved the camera whilst shooting aswell, but this didnt prove effective. So by trying many different effects and movements we tried to change the clip for the better. The speed of the clip was changed as we filmed it very slowly panning and we wanted a faster panning effect to match in with the speed of the montage. The speed can be easily changed through the panel in imovie with a slider. The duration was also cut down and altered to the most scenic part of the clip.

Survey Results




1. We are filming a teaser trailer in the horror genre, but what sub-genre would you prefer?

From the results of this survey we have found that most of our audience would prefer a supernatural horror, examples of this is the twilight. 


2. What sounds do you think would be most effective?

We had mixed results from this question, but the highest voted was sound effects, this infulenced us to research into film trailers using sound effects. Which lead to us finding a clip of jewellery box music.

3. What location would you find most effective for a horror movie?

Many different locations are used in many different trailers, but from this survey we can tell that people preferred a graveyard or cemetry setting, followed by a home setting. Because of this we aimed to feature both.

4. We would like our main character to be the antagonist, Specifically, what would you prefer?

Serial killer was not a popular option, this could be for our age range. Although, possessed and ghost haunting mother were popular so we thought we would try to combine the two or have aspects of both.

5. What age range of actors would you like to see the most?

A younger generation was most popular, maybe this is so our Target audience can relate to the story and characters.

6. What type of camera work would you find most effective?

7. What gender should our main character be?

8. In the teaser trailer, how would you prefer our female Antagonist to look, to show that she is the bad character?

9. What horror conventions would you like to be included?



10. Do you think titles to give clues about the plot incorporated into the teaser trailer would be effective?

 From the results, we found out that viewers like clues about the plot, we will include subtitles and small clues about the overall plot to please the viewers of the teaser trailer.

Case 39 Film Deconstruction

Case 39 

Camera Angles:

• High angle looking down on the social worker, usually she’d have more dominance in a situation but from this camera angle looking down on her she is looking as if she’s smaller/insignificant and the others are more in control
• Close up of the young girl’s emotions looking scared and uncomfortable
• Camera shots cut between the tired mum showing her pale face, dark sunken eyes, the angry dad and little girl looking scared
• Medium shot to show both characters in the frame, whole the mother is hiding behind the door acting as a barrier between her and the social worker it’s evident she doesn’t want to let her into their lives

Mise En Scene:

• When the social worker arrives children are playing together in the background, dogs are barking normal diegetic sounds from a community
• When it shows the house, the atmosphere shifts; eerie music starts to play in the background things are more echoed and dark
• When the mum is shown looking out of window the curtains are protecting her by covering up her face could symbolise what they are covering from authorities. She looks worried, the house looks run down not looked after by the use of dull colours
• Her face very pale red tired eyes, girl looks scared, they sit away from the mother maybe emphasising that they don’t have a good relationship
• He kicks her under the table doesn’t speak for himself
• Contrast to when they come in to the police station looking smart with the suits make-up and hair done, they try to make a good impression on the authorities by dressing smartly

Sound:

• When the social worker arrives children are playing together in the background, dogs are barking normal diegetic sounds from a community
• When the camera turns to show the house, the atmosphere shifts, eerie music starts to play in the background things are more echoed and dark
• When she sees child music starts to sound as if it’s a wind up doll thing type of music typical of child nursery rhymes but sounds quite sinister creepy music box, footsteps are loud 

Camera Angles:

• Close up angle of the eye is effective in making the viewer uncomfortable and awkward watching it as it’s such a disturbing image
• They use an overhead  shot of him when he is going crazy ripping his head backwards, you can see the blood dripping down and the clothes on the floor

Mise En Scene:

• He wears a white shirt unbuttoned at the top showing maybe he’s stressed or now relaxing at home
• He is in a white room which has connotations of something clinical or a mental hospital which adds to the dramatic action of him turning mad before he dies
• Everything looks clean and clinical, this shows a stark contrast to then when the blood goes everywhere around the room

Sound:

• They use high pitch screeching noises then sharply stops repeatedly
• The continual noise of bugs flying around
• The noise that was building up the suspense stops when he flushes the bug away, as he thinks he has got away with it
• When the bugs come back the noise comes back again but more deep sounds as opposed to the high pitch sound
• Noises speed up builds up the pace
• Then fades out when he’s dead on the floor

Editing:

• Camera spinning around the room 360 degrees making him seems crazy, anxiously looking around quickly
• Uses unsteady looking like hand-held camera moving it in different angles to make him look more unbalanced

Camera angles:

• Close up of locks and bolts to prevent little girl from getting in
• Close up of her face, showing Emily’s fear
• They focused on the markings on the floor just as the parents had showing the full cycle which can’t be broken

Mise En Scene:

• Conforms to the conventional bedroom nothing subverting this to indicate a difference in what will happen
• Role reversal the woman is hiding under the bed while the girl tries to coax her out
• She shows fear as opposed to the little girl who shows authority

         Sound:

• The moving of furniture and the little girl breaking through the bedroom are all emphasised and louder than usual, this is done to symbolise how destructive she can be and the effect she has on people
• When the girl bursts through the room and then stabs the floor with the knife the music is all dramatic but suddenly changes when she shows her face to almost nursery rhyme, innocent music which seems quite creepy and evil reflecting her character. 

Shooting Script

December 10th-

Location : Becca's house
Time: 2.00pm

We aim to film all the bedroom scenes and the burning of the photographs, we don't require any props for these particular scenes. we will need dark lighting for the burning of the photographs so this will be done later in the evening.



Camera angles and movement

-Hand held camera for the bedroom scene
-Birdseye shot for the burning of the photographs
-High angle shot for the bedroom scene
-Point of view shot for the mirror scene

Costumes needed-

Rebecca- Bed and Makeup Scene/plain white nightdress, no shoes or braclets
Jane-  Bed Scene/plain top, plain pyjama bottoms
            Makeup Scene/dark top, plain jeans, no jewellery

Makeup needed-

Rebecca- white face makeup, heavy eye liner, dark eye shadow, thick mascara, pale lips
Jane- dark eye shadow, light mascara, dark lips

Editing (Videos)

As well as inserting our own clips that we had filmed with our flip camera, we downloaded clips from YouTube. Originally we wanted to film our own TV to create the same 'fuzzy' effect, however we weren't satisfied with the outcome, the clips didn't look as authentic as we wanted them to be so we decided to download an already existing clip from YouTube.

Editing (Colours)

After becoming confident in using the video editing tools, there were three clips we wanted to create the effect that they were night vision. We did this by enhancing the exposure and contrast, darkening the brightness and saturation. But ultimately the tool we used to create the right colour and grainy film look was the 'White Point' tool, by changing the colour filter to blue we managed to create a night vision effect. blue also has cold and clinical connotations, and as the mother is unaware that she is standing over her it creates an eerie atmosphere.

We also used this editing technique for another clip of the main protagonist standing behind her mother. We chose to change the colour filter to red as this has connotations with the devil, blood and danger. This ties in with our plot and makes it obvious to the audience the character is evil and forebodes something bad is about to happen. Adding to this we also changed the exposure levels to make the image slightly unclear too add to the ambiguity, because the audience and the mother are unaware of the characters presence until the mother walks out of shot.

Editing (Clip Duration)

After editing the colour filter on the graveyard clip, the clip was still about 6 seconds long, we decided this was too long and as it was a panning shot it showed too much of only one place. To make the clip shorter we used the editing technique of changing the speed of the clip, rather than cutting the clip we changed the duration of it to only 2seconds.
This way we could show enough of the clip for the audience to see whats happening but not bore the viewers with a 6second clip of the same thing. The camera work was also slightly shaky on this clip as when we filmed it was windy so by speeding it up we eliminated the shaky element.
We also used this technique when creating our montage of clips at the end of the teaser trailer, a montage of clips is a common convention of film teaser trailers, horror trailers in particular. By showing a quick succession of clips you create tension and also give the audience an extra insight into the story plot.

Editing (Inserting Text)

We decided to insert text into our teaser trailer to offer a better explanation of the story to the audience, one slide we inserted was a transcript of an audio clip that was playing simultaneously. We did this so the sound clip was made more understandable to the viewers.
We positioned the text in the centre of the screen rather than at the top or bottom to create a more central focal point to make it easier to read. We chose to translate only one line of text so the audience were not overwhelmed with reading lots of a text in a short time, we also decided this line was the most important.







We also inserted text at the end of the trailer containing the release date of the film, after the name had appeared. This is a common convention of film teaser trailers as the audience need to be made aware of the release date, this is a form of promotion for the film informing the viewers when they can see the film in the cinema.
Again we followed the same colour scheme as we have used previously in the trailer, we felt simple white text on a black background makes the text stand out.

Editing (Video Editing)

When constructing our trailer we used editing techniques such as changing the colour using the brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure and also editing the colour filter for the clip.
In the clip shooting the graveyard originally it was bright and the colours were very vivid but we thought that to create a more solemn atmosphere we wanted to make the colours darker with more grey and dull tones.
We did this by putting down the contrast and saturation, also to make the quality clearer we heightened the exposure, which resulted in the clip reflecting a more stereotypical eerie graveyard scene.

Shrine Trailer Deconstruction

Shrine trailer deconstruction 

Sound:
·         It starts with diegetic speech, of two characters having a conversation
·         There is a fairly loud bang then goes more quiet and background spine-chilling music starts
·         Music is a mysterious type of music quite creepy throughout the whole trailer
·         It goes quieter then builds up again with short sharp loud noises followed by louder and quicker music building up the pace and tension of the storyline
·         Goes silent thinking it’s the end of the trailer then ends with a loud scream element of surprise/fear


Camera angles:

·         Starts with a low angle shot someone walking through the door. A low angle is used in order to give the character dominance or seem more powerful. It also seems like something is down there waiting for them to come in and scare them, using fear of the unknown to create tension
·         An aerial shot shows a lot of greenery sets, it’s used to set the scene showing that the film will be set in a countryside area rather than in an inner city
·         Close up shot is used to draw attention to specific detail, here it is showing something about to go into the actors eye this is a disturbing image for the viewer and is used to make us feel uncomfortable watching it
·         An over the shoulder shot  is used to show us the character’s perspective, the actor stands dead still which could emphasise her fear of what is in front of her not wanting to move towards it. Despite her still taking up the majority of the frame the figure still looks in perspective big, for something that far away, to enhance the fear. 

Mise en scene: 

·         One of the first images we see of this area is with someone looking like they are planting or digging something surrounded by bushes and plants looks like they could be on some type of farm or plantation. Thus shows they are in an isolated area.  All the people they see wear dark, long, clothing especially the girls/women.
·         The explorers wear casual clothes, before going into the forest when they see the mist it creates an eerie atmosphere and builds a fear of the unknown as they don’t know what they’re about to walk into or find in there
·         When they are captured it shows a dark room with minimal lighting, all the men are in long dark cloaks and the only bit in light is when the body is on the raised platform for everyone to see what is about to take place. The darkens of the room suggests something is going to happen that they don’t want people to see

Editing:
·         It uses basic continuity editing to create a sense of the narrative moving forward
·         It sometimes slows the actions down to add more effect
·         Between shots it fades into black before showing the next image
·         At the end the editing speeds up showing short fast clips to create pace which is enhanced by the parallel sound of the fast paced music