Here I talk about what has gone on in the video and how good or not as good it went.
Thursday 29 March 2012
Wednesday 28 March 2012
Friday 16 March 2012
Filming and Location
Our trailer is based in the forest so instead of going to the studio we found a quite large forest to film in. we filmed on a Saturday.
we encounterd many difficulties however when filming here. While filming we encountered the problem of lighting. Even though filming something outside is best done with as much light as possible so that the camera will capture less noise as possible, we found that it was too sunny and there was too much light exposure for the atmosphere we wanted to create. We did try to block the sun out at some points by making everyone there stand next to each other and open their coats to block the light slightly. However many of our shots contained a lot of light this meant we had to a lot of editing to do in final cut pro when it came to editing our trailer. we managed to get a darker effect by tinting the shots but in some places it is sill quite bright.
As it is Winter it was also very cold. Our victim was especially cold as she had to be in just a T-shirt and jeans. We did have another group with us so we helped each other when help was needed and made sure both groups were happy.
Thursday 15 March 2012
Character Synopsis - BERRY
This is a picture of the victim who is a young mixed raced female. Her make-up it subtle and her hair is long and black and she is an average teenager. We chose to use her as our victim; as a common convention of horror movies is to have a young, attractive female as the victim. We decided to stick to the convention of victims being females but also go against some conventions slightly as we noticed that in horror movies the females are typically blonde, and wear quite revealing clothes. Our victim is more average, her clothes are not revealing is she is an everyday teenager. She represents the stereotypical good girl that is portrayed in horror movies. She is pretty, calm and clever. In our trailer the victim is running away from the killer. The killer eventually captures the victim and kidnaps her.
A famous character that represents our character is Jamie lee Curtis in Halloween. In Halloween she is nothing but scared and afraid and she seems to just want all this toruble to end. She is constantly being chased Michael and gets very frustatrated.
This is a picture of the killer who is also a 'klown',a young white male. We chose to use this person as our Killer as we believed we could work with appearance to make him look scary. As our genre is slasher we felt that our killer needed to look fierce, dominant and intimidating. In our trailer the killer is chasing after the victim and he kidnaps her.
Our killer is mentally unstable, disturbed, angry and seeking vengeance. He does not fit into society and is a reject so he therefore isolates himself from the community to a secluded area which in this case is the woods. This is why the kidnap and killing takes place in the woods as the victim is on his territory. A famous character that our character mirrored was Michael Myers from Halloween who is also an outcast, angry and is seeking revenge. Both Michael Myers and our character are very normal in the sense that they are dressed in casual attire, are human being and have only a mask to hide their identity.
Sunday 11 March 2012
Health and Safety on a Film Set - HOALIE
High standards of health and safety in production can only be achieved and maintained by everyone involved in the industry playing their part. This means recognising and accepting the different obligations and responsibilities that health and safety legislation places upon individuals or organisations.
Under health and safety legislation, the ultimate responsibility for health and safety rests with the employers involved and the organisations in control of premises and facilities. On a day-to-day basis, the producer has overall responsibility for ensuring that appropriate standards of health and safety are achieved and maintained throughout the production process.
Standard rules that production companies should follow:
● only undertake work for which it has been adequately funded
● produce a written health and safety policy statement, including an organisation section detailing who is responsible for what, and an arrangements section, including the procedures for risk assessment and
monitoring of performance
● clearly identify who has control of the premises, location and facilities
● use only competent staff, freelances and contractors
● ensure that contractors and freelances are formally appointed and that company standards are clearly communicated to them
● identify any additional training needs of staff and freelances and ensure these are met before production commences
● ensure that contractors are provided with adequate information about the planned production activity so that they in turn can establish safe systems of work based on risk assessment
● ensure that specialist advice is taken and implemented where necessary
● ensure appropriate exchange of information regarding risk assessments between production and all affected parties
● ensure adequate co-ordination and communication between the various parties involved in the production
● ensure that work begins only when adequate preparations have been made, including full assessment of all risks, selection of competent contractors and other production crew, clear assignment of responsibilities and rehearsals where necessary
● ensure that all work throughout the life of a production is undertaken safely, in line with any company standards and/or the standards established by risk assessments
● ensure that staff and freelance employees are adequately informed and supervised throughout the production
● report all accidents and reportable incidents, in line with company/production policy and legal requirements
● communicate any changes that are likely to affect health and safety standards in the production clearly and with the maximum notice possible
● monitor health and safety performance throughout the production
● ensure that any concerns with the health and safety performance of employees, freelance staff and contractors are addressed and communicated as appropriate
● consult and involve employees in health and safety matters
● ensure that working hours are managed effectively throughout all production activities.
Under health and safety legislation, the ultimate responsibility for health and safety rests with the employers involved and the organisations in control of premises and facilities. On a day-to-day basis, the producer has overall responsibility for ensuring that appropriate standards of health and safety are achieved and maintained throughout the production process.
Standard rules that production companies should follow:
● only undertake work for which it has been adequately funded
● produce a written health and safety policy statement, including an organisation section detailing who is responsible for what, and an arrangements section, including the procedures for risk assessment and
monitoring of performance
● clearly identify who has control of the premises, location and facilities
● use only competent staff, freelances and contractors
● ensure that contractors and freelances are formally appointed and that company standards are clearly communicated to them
● identify any additional training needs of staff and freelances and ensure these are met before production commences
● ensure that contractors are provided with adequate information about the planned production activity so that they in turn can establish safe systems of work based on risk assessment
● ensure that specialist advice is taken and implemented where necessary
● ensure appropriate exchange of information regarding risk assessments between production and all affected parties
● ensure adequate co-ordination and communication between the various parties involved in the production
● ensure that work begins only when adequate preparations have been made, including full assessment of all risks, selection of competent contractors and other production crew, clear assignment of responsibilities and rehearsals where necessary
● ensure that all work throughout the life of a production is undertaken safely, in line with any company standards and/or the standards established by risk assessments
● ensure that staff and freelance employees are adequately informed and supervised throughout the production
● report all accidents and reportable incidents, in line with company/production policy and legal requirements
● communicate any changes that are likely to affect health and safety standards in the production clearly and with the maximum notice possible
● monitor health and safety performance throughout the production
● ensure that any concerns with the health and safety performance of employees, freelance staff and contractors are addressed and communicated as appropriate
● consult and involve employees in health and safety matters
● ensure that working hours are managed effectively throughout all production activities.
Saturday 10 March 2012
Film Trailer Textual Analysis - HOALIE
Paranormal Activity 3
The purpose of the film trailer is to advertise about the horror movie paranormal activity 3’s release in the cinema, and to display some of the highlights of the movie to get the audience engaged and interested in coming to see the movie.
You can establish the story due to its layout style, it’s made in a type of video blog which narrates the story as it goes along, the general atmosphere is like a home video to which a member of the family has set up for purposes such as to record memories for the future, as you start noticing spooky things happening throughout the trailer you start to realise that that the camera’s might be used for another purpose rather than just home videos, theirs a snippet in the trailer where a female character states “ whatever it was, it thrived on fear” by allowing you to now see there is something unknown gives the whole plot a sense of mysteriousness.
The enigmas that are raised through the narrative are about something mysterious and unknown entering their home without consent, a chain of weird events seem to be happening which confuses and scares the family until; being conscious of their every move.
The characters are established by being introduced by the person who is holding the camera in the ‘home video’ you can see this because Katie & Christie are introduced by the camera man at the start, due to it being a home video you would assume that the male holding the camera is the father figure of the family, one of the two young females are seen in another seen as older women, saying “whatever happened when we was younger, I don’t remember” and then when you see the date at the bottom of the screen its much older than the present time, so adapting all this information you can see they have took an insight into the girls past, the unknown character is introduced at the end of the trailer when you see a dark silhouette of a person.
The Dialogue that is displayed is “this October discover the secret behind the activity” which is spaced out thought the trailer so for example after a certain camera cut or visual effect it would display a tiny bit more of the whole sentence which helps to build suspense, because the words are so powerful on their own such as “Discover” opens up the suspense even more, leaving the audience to think what is there to discover, it’s a really clever way to build suspense and engage the audience.
Action clips are used shortly after a calm gentle scene which contrasts both scenes and shows you how the story and atmosphere can change within the film instantly, one minute everything is calm and happy families, but when the night vision cameras are shown mysterious and crazy things happen.
The actions clips signify that something weird is happening within this normal nuclear family and whatever it is, it’s not obvious with just a mask like a generic convention would show, but its different where throughout the movie the villainous/negative character is never seen which adds to the suspense.
The pace of editing is very fast and rapid cutting from scene to scene within seconds which does 2 things, lets the audience get a glimpse of the action without displaying to much detail and insight, and also allowing the trailer to include a lot of content within the short amount of time it has to display. The visual style is average camera quality due to it being a home video on an normal camera that the family own, it’s not been done at a professional level and you can tell this because it’s a handheld camera with point of view shots, by the camera consistently distorting could create the sense that the video tape is old and this is a home video.
The main graphic in the trailer is at the end where it displays the total of the film, graphics aren’t displayed throughout the trailer because the director of the trailer wanted to create the amateur home video look so that the audience can relate to what the characters in the trailer are experiences as best they can to create that more realistic scary affect.
You can tell what type of genre it is due to the dark shadows and jumpy scenes throughout the trailer which has specifically been directed to scare the audience and to shock them, another way that the genre is signified to the audience is through the use of dialogue between the camera and the character talking into the camera, giving you a connection between the character and the audience as if the character is addressing you.
The pace alters when one of the young female characters are put in an extreme close up shot of her coming towards the camera fast, from then on the pace changed because things became more serious, it started off slow which made it seem more calm and a more positive situation.
The trailer appeals to the viewer because the storyline is realistic in a sense that there is a lot of discussion whether ghosts exist and paranormal activities occur, also the fast pace of the trailer and amount of cuts appeals to the viewer because it keeps the viewer engaged.
The generic conventions are challenged as the villainous/negative figure is not apparent throughout the whole trailer, the rapid use of camera cuts makes it like other horror trailers as it has to be fast paced to include a lot of content, enough to advertise the movie to the audience and to scare them, other films similar to these conventions such as the handheld camera to make it as if you’re there, Blaire witch project which also is based on supposedly real events.
Film Poster Textual Analysis - HOALIE
Black crows: in the secondary image, you can see that there is a picture of some flying black crows surrounding the primary image and also surrounding the house, normally you would associate black crows with death as their presence is there when there is a corpse near, so adding some crowns into the secondary image creates the sense of death and negativity towards the poster, it’s a good effect to use when advertising for a horror movie.
Primary image: The primary image is a typical generic situation, a young mother that is supposedly on her own who is looking after her child, involving a child into horror movie to create the sense of mysteriousness is highly used in horror movies as a common convention of this genre, the young boy and a helpless single mother on their own can create some good suspense into what the film is going to involve.
The weather type that has been chosen use extremely bad weather conditions to create the effect of a very negative atmosphere, although in this poster it’s a lot more in depth and noticeable due to the size of it and the attraction to the black crows, most horror movies will use this weather effect to create the sense of negativity towards the film.
The house in the background: The house is a very common thing which was seen in a lot of younger ages horror movies but not as much so more. The poster shows a haunted house with a very spooky look, a lot of dark areas around the house and the dark sky reinforces its scary approach, this would typically be the house that the main characters would be residents and a number of strange horrific events occur throughout.
As you can see in the background image, the house that’s being displayed is on its own and there is no other accommodations anywhere to be seen, an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere isolated from the rest of mankind is a good way to create the effect of mysteriousness and a spooky approach, your first prediction would be the house has been abandoned and either the main characters have moved into the house or they go through a series of events they have ended up at this haunted house.
In the primary image the characters are looking directly at the camera which creates a connection between the audience and the character, one reason for this could be because it created the effect that they are crying out for help, hence the reason they are looking directly at the camera, another reason for this could be because something evil is coming and their looking at it, creating the sense that is in this poster, although you can only see these two main characters, they are not alone.
The tagline that has been added to this poster says “children can experience paranormal phenomenon. They see what adults cannot, and they are trying to warn us!” this is a good advertising for a number of reasons, firstly it allows us to know that the film involves ghost due to the use of paranormal, or some form of other life, and also by adding an exclamation mark at the end emphasising the seriousness of it making it look more dramatic to the audience.
The title of the movie is called “The messengers”, the typography of this is a range of distorted letters spelling out the specific title ‘messengers’ by making the type distorted, it makes it look a lot more weird and peculiar, you can also make links between the tagline and the title which could be why the font of the title has been distorted, due to giving it that ghostly free roaming effect.
The text at the top of the poster advertising who is starring in the movie has been typed in some sort of gothic font which helps keep the horror and spooky setting consistent, all key parts such as the actors/actresses and the tagline which creates a hierarchy for the audience to view the information.
Magazine Front Cover Textual Analysis - HOALIE
The main image is a woman that has taken a fixed picture with a transparent background, this could be to emphasise her presence more, the female shown has blood running down her face and neck, two possible reasons for this is that she has attacked someone or she has been attacked herself.
The side illustration on the magazine reads “worldwide no.1 horror entertainment magazine” emphasises the genre of the magazine and its popularity among its readers within the horror industry.
Underneath the title of the magazine it shows the website where you can get additional information in relation to the information in the magazine such as more recently updated news or exclusive videos.
Again there is use of promotion and emphasising that this is a really good magazine to read when it comes to the horror movie genre, by again stating that its one of the best horror magazines at this present time.
The female figure that’s positioned at the very centre of the magazine is looking directly into the camera which creates a connection between the audience and the character that’s been displayed on the front cover.
On the bottom left corner of the magazine it reads you voted in your thousands and the winner is Bobby Sue Luther, which shows that this magazine has another promotional scheme to gain recognition of the magazine by getting everyone involved in an activity.
The title of the magazine is written in red which creates connotation of death and blood which you can then create connotations between the magazine genre and the title of the magazine. This is a really good feature when designing a magazine cover.
The tag like of the horror magazine is “vogue for the horror fans” Vogue means the prevailing fashion or style at a particular time, meaning that this is the most fashionable magazine for the horror genre at this current time.
The colours used in this have been made very simplistic, limiting the number of colours used; the only colours used in this are blue, red, black and white, not making it too confusing.
There is an attractive puff which says “PLUS” in a large bold font, it’s been designed so that the white writing clashes with the red background making it clearly visible to notice and catch the audience’s attention.
Like all generic magazines that have been put out on the market, they must all have a barcode which stated what the product is and its price.
By using a contrast of red and white throughout the magazine front cover, it allows the audience to clearly read and understand all the information that’s being displayed and it also us a good use of aesthetics.
The use of the blue colours shows you that this is where the additional information would be stated in relation to the red font which is the headers of the secondary information being displayed, it also means that everything is well organised as it has all been colour coded without the use of annotating in through.
Thursday 8 March 2012
Research into slasher trailers- REBECCA
As we are planning to do a slasher teaser trailer i decided to go research some typical conventions. We may not use them all but it will be helpful as it will make out trailer look more professional. The following are the points i have gathered as conventions by viewing a variety of slasher trailers on you tube.
- Audience sees pain inflicted on the victim
- The killer often has an iconic weapon such as a knife or even an iconic costume like in the films scream and Friday the 13th.
- Loud screams by the victims
- eerie silences
- sometimes a trailer may start of happy ( ie kids playing ) to create a carm atmosphere then when it turns scary it creates more of a stronger impact.
- The killer is often not revealed especially in teaser trailers.
- A lot of time the camera shots will be from the killers point of view
Camera Shots for Poster Ideas - BERRY
Green - Camera shots we used in our piece. (Trailer/Magazine/Poster)
Purple - Camera shots we didnt use in our piece. (Trailer/Magazine/Poster)
Here are some rough ideas of shots we felt to consider for our poster, ranging from long shots to close-ups.
Purple - Camera shots we didnt use in our piece. (Trailer/Magazine/Poster)
Here are some rough ideas of shots we felt to consider for our poster, ranging from long shots to close-ups.
This is a close-up which was our number one idea, this we because we felt that the close ups would be most effective and it is a common convention that horror posters hold. In this close-up we can see the person’s emotions and the detail.
This was our second idea which is a long-shot. We felt that this idea was risky but could be a success. We understood that if we went with this idea we wouldn’t get the opportunity to show in detail the victims emotions. However, this gives us the chance to focus on the background. In the editing process we can add a range of effects to the background to create a very horror like effect.
Here is a similar close up, however the person is tilted here. This is a convention displayed in the saw III poster that we felt was successful as it creates a sense of disfiguration.
This is a high-angle. This was also an idea we considered as high angle shots always make the person look scared, shy and inferior. If our poster features the victim this would be a perfect match as the victim would look intimidated.
This is a medium shot which was a definete idea, we felt that this shot would allow us to show the background and setting and display costume at the same time.
Wednesday 7 March 2012
Textual Analysis Poster - BERRY
Film Title: Saw III
Release Date: 27 October 2006
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Characters: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh & Dina Meyer
Storyline: In this Saw there are almost two story lines, one of which a man whose son was killed in a car accident is thirsty for revenge. He is given the opportunity to receive this revenge when the sick Jigsaw gets involved. However, the revenge isn’t as simple. Meanwhile, the Jigsaw’s sidekick kidnaps Dr. Denlon and keeps her in a horrid storehouse where a collar with explosives is attached to her. They tell her that unless she saves the Jigsaws life the collar will explode, even though he has terminal cancer.
The poster displayed above follows a number of horror conventions. Starting of simply with the colour, it seems that there are 2 main colours, excluding the title which is a dark reddish colour and a pale skin colour. Both colours are quite dull, calm and not at all bright.
The reddish colour of the gums contrasts to the black background of the mouth therefore making the gums stand out. The gums are a vital party of the image so this is effective.
Most horror posters, movies, trailers etc use dark colours as dark colours represent bad/negative things such as sadness, fear and pain.
The whole poster, from the title, to the face is tilted towards the left. This effective convention is to create a sense of off-balance. Clearly, the person in the poster is a victim and is in pain therefore; there is is an element of unstableness in their life due to the pain or discomfort they are experiencing.
The teeth in the picture are also stained and dirty, in contrast to the victim’s clean-shaven skin. The stained teeth represents the condition the victim is in while the contrasting clean 0shaven skin simply shows us this is a normal man who has probably been taken out of his natural environment and is now been subjected to pain. I feel that the few teeth, although grubby have been placed there to show that this person is still human. It also makes the fact that other teeth have been pulled out more evident and noticeable.
Evidently, the victims top teeth have been pulled out this gruesome image are to captivate the audience. It is out of the norm and will therefore cause shock. We understand that the victim is being subjected to pain due to the mental hooks being applied to the side of the victim’s mouth. These hooks look like the ones used in old-fashioned dentistry. This causes more interest as we, in the modern world are unfamiliar with such equipment. We can conclude that some form of painful dentistry is being performed on this person.
The title of the film has been cleverly positioned on the left lower half of the person’s mouth. It is situated where teeth should be. This almost tells us that the title itself is a part of the pain. The font emphasises also as the sharp shape of the letter W almost appears as a tooth itself or an instrument of pain.
There is an element of play on words in the poster as it says ‘opening wide this Halloween’ instead of maybe ‘coming this Halloween’. Seeing the dentist has always been seen as a fearful necessity and the line ‘open wide’ is almost a famous line most of us recognise from our trips to the dentist. Incorporating this line into the advert causes us to relate.
Ideal Target Audience - BERRY
Name: Fatima Twiggy
Twiggy says she has a softspot for films especially horror. She reckons horror films dont have the same effect when not watched in a cinema. Twiggy says she loves the adrenaline horror films create and weirdly enough, she enjoys being scared.
Abi says shes definetly a fan of horror movies. She says slashers have to be 'the one' she recknons now is the time to watch as many as possible as when we get older we're less likely to be as excited about it. She thinks the reason why people our age love horror so muich is because we havent quite yet grown up much. So when we're watching a horror movie we really believe it and this is what makes it exciting.
Age: 18
Education: Full - Time sixth form student
Interests: Indie Bands, Magazines, Movies, Skins, Misfits.
Past-time: Social Networking sites such as Facebook & Twitter.
Twiggy says she has a softspot for films especially horror. She reckons horror films dont have the same effect when not watched in a cinema. Twiggy says she loves the adrenaline horror films create and weirdly enough, she enjoys being scared.
Name: Abigail
Age: 18
Education: Full-time sixth form student
Interests: R&B Music, Movies, TOWIE, Geogie Shore
Past-time: Hairdressing
Abi says shes definetly a fan of horror movies. She says slashers have to be 'the one' she recknons now is the time to watch as many as possible as when we get older we're less likely to be as excited about it. She thinks the reason why people our age love horror so muich is because we havent quite yet grown up much. So when we're watching a horror movie we really believe it and this is what makes it exciting.
Overall
All in all, i feel our target audience should be teenagers 18 plus. I think that teenagers oyunger than 18 are also fans of horror but the content of our slasher will not be suitable for anyone below the age of 18. Teenagers have quite abit of time on they're hands and the ones in full-time education are also a great target as a horror film is a good way of having a break and fun. Slashers are really excitign and keep you on the edge of your seat and teenagers are the type of people that search for this type of adrenalin.
Slasher Films Poster Collage - BERRY
Here are approximately 23 different posters for different slasher films. All of whcih i felt were either very sucessful, well-known or popular. The films here are ranging from the 80s to early 2000.
I decided to put films that could be an example to us and inspire us not only with the making of our poster but the horror teaser trailer itself. As to have a sucessful horror teaser trailer the whole package must be sucessful thsi includes the poster.
Each poster in this collage is very unique. However, i must admit there are some elements that i felt the majority of them all held. For example i notices that most posters either had a close up or medium shot. Of course there's the odd poster with maybe a full length. But the majority differs.
I understand that in horror movies or in general close ups are used to to show emotion and where horror movies usually want to show pain a close up is vital shot.
Due to my research of these sucessful horror slasher posters i decided to tell me group i felt a close up at the front would be a very good idea.
All posters evidently display very dark colours and some display elements of disfuguration. I came to the conclusion that
Audience Research RESULTS - BERRY
After completing our audience research via blackberry messenger and phone call we were able to make generalisations about what we think would appeal to our target audience the most and what we think would make our trailer successful.
I started off by asking my blackberry contacts if they watch horror movies. I was able to come to the conclusion that females watch horror movies more than males. This meant that the majority of people that completed our questionnaire were females ranging from ages 17-18.
I then asked my respondents what genre of horror you consider the best. When I asked this question 75% answered Slasher whilst the remaining 25% said they preferred the psychological genre. I also asked my respondents to name their favourite horror movie. SAW was mentioned more than once and when asked why one said ‘I tend to like films with a lot of gore, that make you cringe’.
This lead the Slasher genre to be our first choice since it seemed to be a favourite amongst our respondents. We felt that if we focussed on Slasher we would be very successful as we had successful examples of Slasher film favourites that could guide us such as SAW.
I asked my respondents what they would expect from a teaser trailer. It is evident that it is expected that teaser trailers should be shorter than normal trailers and very closed with their ideas. My respondents stated that they expect to be drawn in by the teaser trailer. They also stated that a teaser trailer should always be rather short ranging from 10-20 seconds. 20 seconds being the most so that not too much is given away.
My respondents also made it very clear that they would not expect any type of horror trailer to be displayed before 9pm. One said that they felt it would be extremely inappropriate and wrong as those not of age could end up viewing it. This could cause problems and offence. Along with this would be an age certificate. All of my respondents said it is vital that there are age certificates to ensure the safety of those who should not be watching it.
