Evaluation question 1

In order to answer this question I shall look at some key moments in my trailer (as shown in these screen shots) and see if they relate to a real movie trailer in terms of mise-en-scene, design, framing ext. and then see if my product conforms or challenges the forms and conventions of real media products. When I look at these nine screen shots I feel that I have strongly conformed to the traditional horror movie trailer. Our use of dark lighting, high angel camera shots, venetian blind effects and colours are all too common in horror movies, I felt that by doing this we were considerably more likely to make a better horror trailer as there doesn’t seem to be much point in challenging the conventions of a horror trailer when the horror genre is so well defined.
What makes teaser trailers different from theatrical trailers is that they are designed to “Tease” the release of a film and try not to give too much of the films plot away (or in some cases none of the plot what so ever) and they are usually released long before the final product is released. Often footage used in a trailer is not even used in the final cut of the movie. The narrative structure of a teaser trailer is usually very vague more often than not teaser trailers have zero dialogue. The creator of the teaser trailer is trying to make something to capture the attention of as many people as possible in order to do this they have to follow the general conventions of a film trailer to a certain extent (people like to see what they are used to) but also push the boundaries of what they can produce (But people also want to see something new)
The biggest thing that makes out trailer different to most trailers is that most Hollywood trailers mention the actors who will be in the film via on screen text, we felt that by doing this in our trailer would be of little point as our trailer doesn’t contain anyone famous and by putting our names in the trailer throughout the trailer would seem pessimistic.
The way sound has been used in our trailer differs from most trailers. Whereas most trailers simply have non-diegetic music ours had both non-diegetic music and an eerie voice over which is supposed to be part of the films plot. By doing this we broke away from the traditional horror movie trailer somewhat and also made a considerably better trailer.

Original Story Board

Evaluation Q.4

When creating a trailer with a low budget and with limited hardware and equipment it is not easy to make a good looking trailer, but it is not impossible. The use of simple home software such as “final cut pro” can be used to produce decent products (Just look at “The Coen Brothers”) and thanks to all the free online services such as You Tube, Blogger and Flickr independent film making is so much easier. Were it not for the technological advances of today creating and marketing a film would be considerably harder.
The various features available on web 2.0 allowed our group to create and edit our film trailer a lot more easily. By using You Tube we were able to create a source of viewing of our trailer so that we could present it to the class and gain some feedback. Blogger and Flickr allowed us to post all of our work in a place that is easily accessible for other members of our group and allowed us to keep all of our research and data safely backed up. These sites are all very simply to use and navigate one’s way around them. My only criticism of Blogger is how you upload images against text neatly.
The equipment we used for highly important to us as it allowed us to film our trailer. The camera and tripod is tricky to get use to, luckily for use though one of our group members was adapt in using them and another member of our group was able to easily export our footage. Throughout the project I have become more familiar with how to use Macs and their related software. Personally I prefer to use PC’s, not so much for creating a trailer but for the various over features you can find on a PC such as the wider range of compatible software and video games.
The various advantages of web 2.0 have helped us to create a considerably better trailer and have developed our creativity, skills and knowledge of media studies, without the use of them we would not have been able to creates, edit of screen our trailer. Using Macs has changes how i feel about them in comparison with PC’s but I still say that PC’s are easier to use and have a wider range of features.

Evaluation Q.3

When considering audience feedback when one is producing an ad campaign is of the highest importance. Audience feedback allows the marketing division of the film’s production to change anything relating to a films promotion (Magazines, adverts, posters) and change them to the audience’s preference thus creating a stronger ad campaign and hopefully allowing the film to do better at the box office.
Getting audience feedback within a group of media students is simple as it is the best interest of both parties involved. In order to get some feedback of our first trailer we screened it in front of the whole media group and then gave them 5-10 minutes to write down what the thought was good and what they thought was bad about the trailer and how it could be improved. Usually with audience feedback the various demographics within the group varies the feedback, however in our case we received a lot of negative feedback which is why we opted to create a new trailer from scratch rather than edit the original.
Most of the criticism we received was fairly negative and mainly related to how there was a lack of narrative, poor sound use, sudden cut of music, confused by the some of the characters and direction of story and location changes. I find any feedback (Negative or not) helpful and this was taken into account when remaking our trailer. We did however receive some positive feedback the most notable of which was our use of creepy angles and dark characters.
The feedback we received was of great use to us and we found that there was a lot that we could take from it in order to make a better trailer. We almost completely recreated our trailer most notably by changing our theme to one about madness and insanity and our setting to one much more typical of horror films. Overall this did make our trailer considerably less original but it was considerably better for it. We also used a lot of stock soundtracks rather than creating our own, we felt that this was perhaps cutting a corner but we deemed it necessary in order to create a better trailer. Our final trailer also included a distorted voice over to suit our theme; this really brought the standard of our trailer up quite a lot for something fairly small and simple to do.

Final Trailer

Horror film trailer draft

Risk assessment

Risk assessment
• Weather conditions
• Rubbish
• Police
• Local populace
• Level of night vision
• Slippery ground
• Fallen trees

Basic plot

Right. The gist of the plot is that there’s these guys who are us, and we are creating a horror film trailer inside of the film using a handheld camera, a la Cloverfield/Blair Witch Project. However, one of us, who is Sam keeps having scary dreams, and the things he sees in the dream, he jots down to get out of his mind. When he tells us, we don’t believe him, until the drawings become real and try to kill us. We try to escape, however we leave the ending ambiguous at the moment.

Storyboard

Storyboard

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FIlm Distribution

Distribution = marketing + duplication + getting it into cinemas

Film distributor brings a film into the market place

block buster distributor (Fox, WB, Touch stone) receive films straight from the production company's, where as small independent (Lionsgate, momentum) buy films at film festivals (Sundance film festival)

The Distributor has to determine the usp

Has to be clear of the target audience

15-24 is the largest age group

Have to get as large as audience as possible

Research the best release date

Get the budget right

Advertising is paid for, publicity is free

Marketing campaign needs to be unique
-Trailers
-Posters
-Internet
-Radio
-TV

First element is the poster, the trailer is second

The teaser is often made before the film is finished

Trailers should not need voice overs

The horror genre

The horror genre

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Gender steroetypes

Introduction
Movies have been around for many decades. There are various types of genres including action, drama, romance, and comedy. The focus of this paper will be on films in the horror genre. Typically, men are portrayed as the killers and victimize women in all sorts of ways. Women are put into a specific mold within the horror flicks and seen in that light constantly. An example of such a character would be Laurie from the Halloween franchise. She is constantly in need of being saved and barely escapes the hands of Michael Myers during each sequel. This study will deal with the ways that the film industry portrays females in horror movies.

Gender stereotypes post 1970's

Halloween (1978)
Conforms to some traditions and challenges others. Female’s characters that expose themselves die as a result however the main character that is also a female survives because she has adopted a more male appearance and behaviour.

Gender stereotypes post 1970's

The Thing (1982)
Challenges most traditions, there are no females characters what so ever. The villain is never made clear.

Gender stereotypes post 1970's

Secret window (2004)
Challenges most traditions. Villain is also the protagonist; all female characters die without exposing themselves.

Gender stereotypes post 1970's

Texas chainsaw massacre (1974)
Conforms to all Slasher movie traditions.