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  

Initial Story Plot

It is a great taboo for there to be a murder of a child and this is not even a very common convention in horror films, we decided to include a taboo subject in our own project as it makes the plot much more interesting in our opinion.
From initial research we looked at films with children in, with more dark storylines included such as murder and sexualised scenes. Examples of these include: Orphan(2009), The Omen(2006),  Case 39(2009). With the focus of children in mind another idea we came up with was the idea of a murder of a child, an example of a film that includes this element are Baby Blues(2008), and also the children turning on their parents The Children(2008).

Website Comparisons

When designing our website we decided to research existing horror film websites that we have taken inspiration from. When designing the website we were concentrating on stereotypical conventions such as the colour scheme, continuity regarding colours, pictures and typography, etc. 

The Devil Inside website was a useful one to look at, as we realised the teaser trailer opening up as soon as the viewer clicks on the website is a good feature to use as it pops out at them and allows them to watch it without clicking on a further link. The colour scheme for this website is also similar to our own, classic colours with horror connotations are used, black, red and white. We also knew that critics reviews were pivotal on a website and like the positioning of the text on the page, as it is in a prime position so it draws the audience's attention to it. 

The Possession website was useful to look at also, on our own website we decided we wanted to include tabs to other pages to add authenticity and make the website more interesting for the audience. Here, tabs are used and it looks very professional and the website is very engaging for the audience with a lot to do on it. 'The True Story' is also a page which tells of the story the film is based on, we thought this was a good feature and considered including it on our own website. Social networking links are also used on the website which we planned to use on our own website, here you can see millions of people have interacted with the website using the social networking links, which is a very good form of advertising. 

The Case 39 website follows a very dark theme, with a black background and a picture blurred into it, we thought this was effective as it focuses on the picture and typography more. The teaser trailer also starts automatically on this page which again is a good feature to include as it allows the audience to watch it without clicking on a link. The DVD of the film being advertised on the website is a very good form of advertising, as the audience know it's available on DVD or Blu-Ray and know what the front of the box looks like. 

All 3 websites provide different important features we wish to include on our own website, some conventions such as the classic horror colour scheme we wish to conform to, but we want to subvert the stereotype by having a basic and more simplistic website so the focus is more on the teaser trailer and the picture rather than on the background and when a website has too much going on, it is hard for the viewer to focus on single things. 

Survey Questions

Shooting List

December 10th- Shooting 'Bedroom and bath scene'
Location- Rebecca Dunn (main protagonist)'s house

Actors involved
Rebecca Dunn- Daughter (main protagonist)
Jane Dunn- Mother

Camera angles and movement

-Hand held camera
-Panning shot
-Birdseye shot
-High angle shot
-Point of view shot

Costumes-

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-

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

Initial Storyline Ideas

Witch Children

A 2008 article in the Los Angeles Times from Associated Press reports that thousands of African children have been abandoned, tortured and murdered because they are believed to be witches. While in the West the belief in witchcraft has largely died out, the burning and murdering of “witches” was common practice in Europe and North America. The infamous Salem witch trials are a well-known example of this witchcraft belief induced hysteria. Another worrisome trend in Africa is that children have not only been victimized by believers in witchcraft, but that they are also used as witch-finders resulting in people being convicted and punished on the basis of children's testimonies.
By the start of the seventeenth century many children were being punished and put in prison for taking part in witchcraft, usually because of their alleged participation in Sabbats.It was a common belief that witches' children inherited witchcraft from their parents. Witches were thought to pass on their power and knowledge to their children. It was often the practice when charging a person with witchcraft to charge the whole family. Witches who confessed often claimed that they learned witchcraft from a parent.

Tag Line Ideas

-Revenge is bittersweet
-She wants you
-Family Love
-Revenge knows no boundaries
-Evil runs in the family
-Dont look back
-Trust comes at a cost
-Revenge runs in her veins
-Trust noone
-Everything comes at a cost
-She'll never forget

We chose 'Revenge Knows No Boundaries' as we thought it was the most effective, it is ambiguous and leaves the audience wanting to know more about the film itself. Also we felt it was the most relevant with regards to the storyline and the idea of 'Revenge' and the fact that anything is possible as we've broken the social acceptance of family relationships by having a murder by a mother to her own daughter.