Location

our prime location is:

Sydenham School

The Old Building

we thought that this would be an ideal place to film our teaser trailer as the deserted long corridors was perfect to match the isolation that the girl is feeling. Below are some images of the corridor we are going to use. We took the images to see what kind of effect it would give off to its audience.

Storyboarding

In preparation for our filming, we created a storyboard using post it notes so that we could move around and experiement with our ideas for individual shots. by doing this we are saving time. After this, we took still shots using a digital camera of each post it note so that we could upload them onto our blog. We then transformed our final idea for shots onto a neater storyboard that we could use when we start our filming. This will keep us organised and clued up.


we created an animatic of our storyboard below :

Researching Genre; Horror

My research for our chosen genre (horror) consisted of the following movies:
The knowing
The Ring 3
SAW V
throughout my individual research i found that many teaser trailers contain very similar conventions for the same genre. below is a descripive example of my findings for the horror genre.

'The Knowing' trailer
A voice over is heard which introduces the main characters, showing loving relationship, typical of a horror. Usually some sort of closeness or connection between two people. In this particular trailer, it is father and son. Mum had previously died. Characters profession is shown, probably chosen because it doesn’t give away the narrative, it is more background information, showing that the genre maybe sci-fi (doesnt reveal that main genre is horror). The setting emphasises time by showing computers and updated technology. This also leaves the audience with the question ''is this a sci fi film?'. Shows some of the narrative, but the part where it makes the ending unpredictable, it shows different parts of the story without linking it up completely so you still want to go and see it to find out how it all comes together.

'The Ring 3' Teaser trailer
Fan made teaser trailer. Close ups of “underground movies” typed on Google.com, from this we know what time the movie is set, and we automatically know that someone is onto something and needs to research something mysterious. slightly disturbing images. This immdiately tells the audience that it is not for young viewers. The makers of this teaser trailer have taken the original idea from the first film and recreated it. (idea of a home video being explosed). The idea that it is a dvd rather than a video tape tells us that it is made in present day. shows us the different ages of our technology from past to present). Big bold writing is placed between each cut (common in all teaser trailers). They show many flashbacks from the first film, giving the audience idea that the storyline may connect to this first movie. At the end of the teaser trailer the words 'THE RING 3 - COMING SOON' is presented, with the evil girl from the first movie on the front. The words ' coming soon' is also familiar in teaser trailers and it is used to attract and maintain the interest of the audience.

'SAW V' teaser trailer
Narrative conventions: anonymous killer - evil - enigma throughout the teaser trailer (and film). only one character is shown in this teaser trailer, possibly the main character. No narrative is told throughout this teaser trailer. shows mans head stuck is a painful box type object - he looks frightened and knows someone or something wants him dead - the audience is left with the following questions:
does he survive?
who is trying to kill him?
why are they trying to kill him?

Typical Conventions For 'The List'

Narrative Conventions - teenager who was previously bullied. she wants revenge and for people to die.

Character Conventions - Hidden face (mystery), shes a young person (teenager) villain - victim

Typical Iconography - Dimlight/low key, lack of continuity (typical in teaser trailers) creates suspense. Props such as wood (to cxarve into and make natural scratching noises with pen) and large hoodie (to cover girls face)

Camerashot Conventions - Long shots at the beginning (also creates tension). Many close ups towards the end.

Editing Conventions (including special effects) - occasional fast cuts. builds tension. added sound effects and eerie soundtrack which gradually grows louder towards the end.

Casting Conventions - Average looking teenage girl with long dark hair.

Sound conventions - No dialogue. No voiceover. eerie soundtracks and soundeffects. Laughter which fades into background.

Researching Genre - Horror

Our main Genre is Horror. Following this our sub genres are supernatural,

Make a list of the films from your chosen genre that you are familiar with.
Final destination, Orphan, The Ring, The knowing (all horror based films which relate to our film). Other non related horror films include Saw, scream, Friday the 13th.

Which films will influence your own project and how?
Final Destination - The storyline of our film is similar to this film because of the natural disasters that occur.
The Ring - because the girls face is covered constantly, which would influence our teaser trailer because we dont intend on showing the face of the girl who is being bullied (keep her anonymous). this leaves the audience interested and intrigued. Also, the sympathy for the villain (young girl being the villain in both the ring and our film).
The Knowing - this film would relate to ours because the singled out girl in this film rapidly writes questionable things in a similar way. (for this film it is why is she writing numbers? for our film it would be why is she writing peoples names?)

What common themes do these films have?
overcoming evil because she wants to ger rid of the evil powers (telekinesis) that are possessing her and causing her to do these terrible things.
Also, the mystery of the hidden story. this leaves the audience with the question why does she want revenge?
Teenage morality - teenagers tend to want revenge more than others.

How do these films create narrative 'enigma' for the audience?
the enigma is created due to leaving the main characters reason for problem and issues anonymous until towards the end, where the murderer/killer/problem is revealed along with the story behind it. Our film creates this through her face being covered with her long dark hair. Possibly wearing big, baggy clothes and hoody over her head too.
The audience dont see why she has the powers till the end (which wont be revealed in teaser trailer)

How do they appeal to their audience?
horror films mainly attract horror fans, so the audience get attracted through the eerie soundtracks and sound effects, and the creation of enigma which gives off a sense of tension that attracts its target audience. Also, teenagers usually want revenge, as it shows the aggression that teenagers may possess in negative situations. This will also appeal to a younger audience (teenagers). People in general are always left curious when the main character is left anonymous for a long time. They would want to know what the girl looks like. It leaves the audience with the question: is the girl normal? (at the end of the teaser trailer).

i think that the demographic audience for our film would be: Unemployed, students, pensioners and casual workers

i think that the psychographic audience for our film would be: Explorers (seeks disconvery, lots of energy, individualism, experience. values difference and adventure. Brand choice highlights satisfaction and instant effect. mostly appeals to younger demographics - student)

&

Strugglers (seeks escape. Alienated and disorganised. few resources beyond physical skills. brand choice includes impact and sensation. Buys alcohol, junk food, lottery tickets.

Feedback For Teaser Trailer Ideas

To gain feedback on our ideas we approached many people of the appropriate age group (15+) to give us an idea on how successful they think our film would be, if ever it was to be sold. We had alot of positive and negative feedback on both our ideas, and overall this helped us to determine which film we would choose to continue to work on for our teaser trailer.

THE LIST
Ra'eesha says "the film sounds like a good idea, and i think it should attract many viewers"
Jordan says "im not a fan of horror, but i think for the people that do like that genre it would be a good idea"
Nathan says "sounds too similar to Final Destination. Also, how would the killings occur?"
Rianne and Lorisha add "Good trailer idea but not a good idea for a film. It should also be an 18 certificate as 15 would not be suitable for this type of horror".
Jack concludes "Good suspense for a film, and it sounds like a good idea"

SWEAT
Ashley says "people can relate to this film alot more, especially people of our age as it is more realistic for us. Alot more realistic from the first idea"
Danielle says "it would be good to see how they achieve the goal"
Yama concludes "It will ve a good idea as we see how fanancial support can help people pursue their goals and how much people value opportunities".

Our group and i used this feedback to reconsider which film would be more suitable and concluded that with the limited resources and time that we have to make the teaser trailer, and for it only being a one minute teaser trailer, that we would continue with using our first idea, The List.

Planning Teaser Trailer - Number 2

Our second idea did not interest us as much as the first, so it was alot weaker in contents. We decided to call it Sweat, as the idea that they are working hard to reach their goal helped us determine this title. The genre of the film is Drama, and sub genres being dance. It is about two men who are aspiring for the same goal, to become dancers. One man has it easier than the other. He is rich and has many connections. The second is trying hard to get a scholarship and finding his way into the dance school. We decided that the USP of the film should be that they are male dancers, as many dance films you will see are focused on both the male and female, or just the female. The main characters of the film will be the two men. Similar films to this will include films such as Step Up and Save The Last Dance, all drama films which revolve around the lives of aspiring professional dancers.

Researching Into Teaser Trailers

The aim of this task is to research into a number of teaser trailers, and then comparing and contrasting them. For this coursework piece my group for this project consists of the following people: Jay Coleman, Holly Killick and Christopher Ogori. To develop our understanding on teaser trailers and learn about the conventions, we found many examples of teaser trailers on a variety of sites. These included www.youtube.com and www.imdb.com. We watched the teaser trailers for Toy Story 3, Superman, The Dark Knight and 2012. From this, we discovered that most teaser trailers are significantly shorter than your regular trailer; they usually create enigma and suspense, allowing the audience to raise questions about the film and be eager to keep an eye out for the trailer and then the film.

We noticed that different genres determine how the teaser trailer is presented and what it consists of. For example; Toy Story 3 lacked showing of the narrative and storyline (possibly due to the film not have been completed yet) and just introduced characters that the audience are familiar with, as they are we known characters. New characters are also introduced, raising suspense and suspicion from the audience. However, the teaser trailer for 2012 was based on just the setting and soudtrack to create suspense and get a feel of what the atmosphere is to be like in the full feature. Both teaser trailers created an enigma through lack of narrative and storyline.

Planning Teaser Trailer - Number 1

Our coursework aim is to create a one minute teaser trailer using a film that we have created. We began planning and came up with two teaser trailers. The first is a horror film called The List.

The Narrative of 'The List' is about a girl (who remains anonymous throughout the teaser trailer) who was bullied and is looking for revenge. She discovers that she has special telekinesis powers, which put those people that have bullied her lives at risk. Because of the violent, traumatic and emotional contents that this film contains, we decided to rate it a 15. We wanted to make it a major production with a high budget because we thought that this type of movie links to alot of major productions, For example, films like Final Destination, The Knowing and Hostel (further research on these films in seperate blog).

The target audience for this film is horror fans, teenagers and people 15 onwards. These target audiences would be alot more suitable for this film because they can sympathise alot more with the situation the main character is in. In addition to this, our group decided that the demographic audience would consist of the following: Skilled manual workers to the unemployed; builders, plumbers, students and casual workers etc. The psychogrpahic audience would be "Explorers and strugglers".

We all had many ideas for the teaser trailer, and in the end decided that we were going to settle for a girl who is sitting in the dark in a classroom scratching the names of her victims onto the table. We were going to use soundefects such as footsteps and sctratching noises but in the end decided to just use the scratching noises, as it resembles the scratching of the names in the table. It also creates an eerie noise which represents horror and the building of tension. To create enigma we kept the girls face anonymous by hiding her face, possible with a hood over her head. She is the main character of the film and the USP is a female killer.

The teaser trailer will begin with the girl walking alongside a long corridor. Cutting noises would be put in on every cut that is made, and will gradually fasten in pace to create tension.

A2 Media Studies Coursework; Researching Film Promotion

Our class have been looking at different ways of using research to promote films. We have been doing this through choosing recently released films and then looking at the number of ways in which they are promoted. After this, we created a presentation powerpoint to show our research.

The film i researched was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. i sued this and contrasted it with Transformers, the research that jessica was doing. Together we looked at how they were promoted through magazine covers, websites, posters and movie trailers and teasers.

Magazine covers for the film are promoted through the images of the characters and the colours which are used. Websites contain important information and show official sneak peeks and trailers for the film. The trailers give the viewer an insight to the main events of the film and what kind of film it is. For example, Harry Potter contains a hybrid genre consisting of Action/Adventure/ Fantasy film. My presentation shows this in depth.

My presentation link is:

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/frjZ5sQ19OUZbQ

Final Product!!

Evaluation Q7 .. x

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

We chose a location that represented a horror atmosphere to bring a sense of realism to the product. The location, Kingswood House, was my idea, as i've lived near the house for several years and always pictured a horror movie being based around it. As soon as we had decided what genre we was going to use, i knew straight away this would be the ideal place for the product.

In most horror movies, they always begin with an introduction to the location alongside a creepy, spine chilling soundtrack. They may do this to make the audience aware of where the movie takes place. Also, to keep the audience wondering about what may have happened there, what is going to happen, etc. We tried to replicate this idea and make it genuine, but to our personal style.

The silhouette effect created here is the perfect example of some of the effects the audience may see in a horror movie.

Evaluation Q6 .. x

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I used a variety of diffferent technologies in order to create my final product. These included the use of internet, use of cameras, laptop and editing software.

The use of internet allowed me to access a range of different music materials, and also to find films of a similar genre to the one i created. One site which gave free copyright material that i looked through was http://www.royaltyfreetunes.co.uk/.

The use of the digital cameras made it much more easier for my group and i to film our product. This was because the digital cameras were much more easier to work with. It contained zoom in which we could work well with, because we could use the zoom to add tension to certain scenes. For example, we used zoom at the beginning to show the location and create a horror atmosphere.

The use of editing allowed my group and i to remove any glitches and unwanted scenes. I used editing to create the credits and title, and also to add fades in areas which it was needed. There was one scene in which my group and i needed to add a voiceover, so editing was used to help us do this. We also used it to add background tracks, we also had to cut some of the track down to size so it fits in with the movement. It was also used to sequence our final product.

Evaluation Q5 .. x

How does your media product represent different social groups?

My media product represented different social groups in a number of ways. One way in which it did this was through the casting that was presented. Our media product contained a multi cultural cast which could be used to our advantage as it branches out to more than one ethnical group.

The whole cast were grouped to a similar age. Being teenagers, this has a wide similarity to what most people would see in other horror movies, as the cast in most horror movies are usually of similar age, and teenagers.

All the characters that are shown throughout the media product are perceived in a positive way. They all help each other out, and stick together. They are represented positively through the narrative and their actions.

Evaluation Q4 .. x

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, i feel that i have shown a major pregression in my use of technical and practical terms. From my full product, i can see that i have gained a wider knowledge in many aspects in the progression from it to the full media product, these all including camerawork, editing, use of equipment and team work.

When we made the preliminary task, i found that the hardest tenchinque we used was editing. However, during my time on the course, and with the help of my peers and my teachers, editing became a simpler task as i realised we were doing it more regularly. I have learnt many different editing techniques now, including how and where to add fades, how to cut unwanted parts of the video and adding titles and credits.

I also feel that i have learnt many new media terms and how to create them on a video recorder. For example, i now know how to create a shot reverse shot during a conversation, and i know that continuity plays a major role in media production.

Evaluation Q3 .. x

How did your media product attract/address your audience?

From the feedback that was given by our audience, we could see that there were a number of things that we used that attracted and addressed our audience. For example, the use of mise en scene helped us to create a sense of empathy from the audience, through the setting.




The image represents a multicultural cast, which shows that we were aiming to create a product for a multicultural audience. I think that this would have been successful, if our product were to actually be distributed.

The storyline of our media product attracts the typical horror movie fans, as from our research we took many ideas and made them our own by personalising them.

We aimed to choose a musical background that had an eery, spine chilling effect to it, in which our audience would find in most horror movies. In order to satisfy our audience, we looked through a number of free copyright music, eventually settling to one which we all agreed with.

All of these ideas are typical conventions of horror films, and personally i feel my group and i reached our target to successfully create a horror film that would attract a wide audience.

Evaluation Q2 .. x

Who would be the audience for your media product?

During our planning process, we concluded that our main target audience aim would be for teenagers aged 15-25. We looked at the different elements that could determine what kind of audience our product would attract, and finally decided that we would be aiming for a working class, multi cultural audience.

We decided this through the type of materials we used in our media product. The mise en scene that were used were modern, which created a more youthful atmosphere that targeted this age group.

We presented our work to a number of teenagers in order to see if our aim was met, and to our success it had.

Their were both positive and negative feedback from a few of our audience which i have listed below.

Positive - The gloomy, dim scenery at the opening scene was an ideal match for the type of film we aimed to create.

Negative - There were a few scenes in which we could have improved by changing a few camera techniques. For example, more close ups in order to show emotions of the characters (e.g when they are scared).

Evaluation Q1 .. x

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think media institutions such as DNA films and Archangel filmworks will distribute our media production, as they all specialise in recent British Horror movies.

DNA films have produced films such as 28 days later and a sequel, 28 weeks later, which both use the British horror genre and theme. The use of a British cast and a British setting also relates to the type of movie we have created, as we also use a British lifeystyle.

Archangel films have produced films such as Spirit Trap which relates to our film
http://horror.about.com/od/foreignhorrormovies/a/britishhorror_2.htm

Media Coursework / Planning / Genre

My group consists of the following people:
Jessica Balaam
Carol Woodgate
Alexe/Shariyah Ismailov

Our coursework aim is to create and produce a two minute introduction to a film, using a genre of our choice.

We looked into many different genre options, eventually choosing horror as our main genre, so we researched into it thoroughly to gain ideas about what our film should be like in order for it to be successful.

We had to decide who the film is for (age group), the main storyline to the film, what characters there are etc.

We concluded that the age group will be for a teenage group varyin from the ages of 16-21.

The storyline will be based on a haunted house.