research into cinema, and horror films.

We set up a questionnaire on horror films, and trailers advertising them to find out what conventions people most like in their horrors.
We found that most people do like horror trailers to advertise their horror films, and the highest proportion of them go to the cinema to see horror films atleast once a month, and buy a horror film on dvd less that once a month. we also found that the majority of them prefered supernatural horror and least liked horrors involving aliens or sci fi. The best prefered setting for a horror film was the woods and would also be interested in a slasher type film.
Based on what our research has told us we plan to make a horror movie trailer to advertise a film based in a woods where a group of friends get haunted, or possibly killed off by someone.

My film pitch.

A group of teenagers are in the woods camping round a fire they had lit and drinking and having a good time. One of the group gets up to get some more drinks, and then puts a mask on and jumps out from behind the trees to make the others jump. Later on in the night the one of the group with the mask dissappears and the group hear him screaming for help, although they do not believe him as he tricked them all earlier. Soon after him not returning though the group go to look for him and find him dead and hanging from a tree. As the night goes on more and more of the group go missing and are found dead. The remaining two in the group find a house in the woods and take refuge here, although soon find that the killer lives here and tortures people there. They leave, and walk round the woods trying to find somewhere safe to take refuge, the killer find them though and kills the male, and drags the female to his basement to be tortured. She is tied up and tortured by him with knives and weapons. She manages to break free and hits the killer with a piece of wood.

what have you learned from your audience feedback?

We screened our horror trailer to the media class and asked them to give feedbackon it, firstly based on whether it worked as a good horror trailer, and secondly if it worked as a teaser trailer.

The audience said that our our trailer worked well as a horror text:
-The shadows were good
-It was filmed from some good strange angles
-A wide range of shots was used
-Good mise-en-scene used to create the idea of isolation
-Good use of white flash
-The heartbeat sound used
-Good lighting used
-The idea of the final girl

Although they also criticised it as a horror text:
-No dialogue
-A locked tension, so no real climax
-Inconsistency of font and effects on intertitles
-Some didnt like the hearbeat sound

They said it worked well as a teaser trailer:
-Started slow and then built up
-The heartbeats in the soundtrack
-Didnt give too much away

Although it was criticised as a teaser trailer:
-The music didnt really build up, bangs in the music would have made it more effective
-The same parts were shown a couple of times, wasted time in the short trailer
-not much plot

Having taken the audiences research into consideration we did a 'second cut' to our product and edited it to fit the horror genre better. This should be an improvement from the 'first cut' so using audience feedback is a good idea as it gets the point of view of many more people than just our group who made it.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I feel that the combination of my ancillary tasks and my main product work well as a package as they all relate to the film.
Firstly the teaser trailer works well as a part of the package. In distribution the trailer is possibly one of the single most cost-effective marketing techniques, as it is seen regularly on the big screen so gets the attention of people who visit the cinema regularly. My trailer works well as it is a good snappy teaser that grabs the attention of the audience. It includes extra footage that woul'nt be included in teh film, but also snipets from the film so they audience can see what is is about; This is good as it is needed to sell the film. Teaser trailers are also found on the internet and on tv adverts so it is important that they are interesting to the target audience as there is a very high chance that one way or another the trailer will be seen by it's target audience.
Secondly my poster is an important part of the promotional package as it would possibly be one of the first things that would be seen in the promotional process. My poster is good because my main image is from an important part of the film, it has a girl in, one of the main characters from the film, this draws you in because it makes you want to know what relevance she has to the film. As the poster is part of the early process of distribution it is important that it stands out to the target audience of the film and lets them know that the new film and other aspects of the distribution are on the way. I think my poster does this well as it has distinctive colours and an amount of bright light on it to grab attention.
As a package it works well as the poster draws in the attention of the target audience and lets them know that the trailer and film is on the way. My trailer then gets the audience interested in the film by showing them parts of it but without giving too much away. My magazine cover is then an example of the publicity the film may get, this is also part of the distribution process as it is another important way of advertising and then selling the film to its target audience.

My poster and magazine cover

How did you use the media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

 In construsting, researching, planning and evaluating my product i used many differant websites, software, and technologies.
  In constructing my product i used technologies such as a video camera to film the clips before the editing stage. I then used final cut pro for editing the teaser trailer, and garage band for putting together the music for it. In constructing my poster and magazine cover i used photoshop for putting it all together, and a digital camera to take my images, to be put onto the poster and magazine cover.
  In researching my product i used websites such as youtube to watch existing horror trailers, to see what was good about them and what wasnt so good, so i could get ideas. I also used the creative commons sound website to research what sort of music and sounds would be suitable for a horror trailer. Some software i used in research was microsoft word to create a questionaire, and then i used microsft excel to analyse my data and create graphs so i could clearly see what y taret audience is and what they would expect to see in a horror trailer. To research my magazine cover and poster i used google images to get ideas of what other existing products were like, and what things i should include in my poster and magazine cover that all other existing products have.
  In the planning stage of my product software such as microsoft word was used to write up a detailed plan and synopsis of what the trailer would be about and what conventions and ideas we planned to include. Technologies such as digital cameras and video cameras were also used to shoot and capture some possible locations and ideas to see how well they worked, and if they would fit the horror trailer we were creating, this helped us plan a suitable location and include the ideas in our trailer that we wanted to. Final cut pro was also used reasonably early on with a few of the video clips to try and plan an order for the trailer and then we could add more shots to it as we went along, this helped with planning as it gave a good idea of where things were going to go in the trailer and just left us with a couple of simple gaps to do at the end. For the planning of my magazine cover i used an existing product as a template on photoshop so i could keep some parts the same, but then i could also do parts differant and would be able to see a clear differance between my product and an existing one. I found this existing product on google images.
  In the evaluation of my product i have used such websites as blogger, to display all my evaluations of the product and what other people thought of it. It is also on youtube so any comments on it will be used as audiences evaluation. I used software such as microsoft word to record comments and thoughts on improvment and what was good on the trailer; things that i thought and also what the target audience thought of the product.

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

  

The image on the left is one taken from 'halloween 2' and the one on the right is one from my teaser trailer. They both have similaraties as slasher films. Both with a mysterious killer with their face covered by a mask. The shot is also in quite a dark setting to make it harder to see. This creates an element of mystery.

The image on the left is taken from 'Haunting in connecticut' and the one on the right is from my teaser trailer. These shots are both similar as they are establishing shots of the setting of the film, they both show an eery setting with trees used to set the scene, this helps in a horror trailer and it leave the audience unaware of what will come up next in the trailer.

The image on the left is taken from 'the wrong turn' horror trailer and the one on the right is from my teaser trailer. They are both similar shots in the trailers, they create a sense of mystery as they are from someone elses point of view and they are watching someone. Both of thses shots are good in horror trailers as thay have horror conventions that many other films have like trees and mystery.

The image on the left is taken from 'texas chainsaw massacre' and the image on the right is from my teaser trailer. They both have semilar conventions that are seen in horror films. They are both taken from running scenes, but also follow the theory about the final girl, which is similar to many other slasher horrof films.

The image on the left is taken from the film trailer of 'paranormal activity' and the image on the right if from my teaser trailer. Although the images are taken from differant situations, they both show a female scared of something in the dark. Darkness and fear involving a female are regular conventions seen in horror films so my trailer including these follows and develops existing forms of media.

These four images above are all taken from my teaser trailer. They all support forms and conventions of typical horror films and trailers. for example they are all set in dark settings or quiet ones to make it seem like the person in the clip is alone, this makes it scarier for the audience to watch. They also don't show too much of what is going on, and on the video are very short clips so the audience never get an idea of what s actually happening. This is regular to a teaser trailer as it makes the audience want to see the full film. These images are also regular to existing horror films as they show a female in some of them scared of the male killer.

In some ways my trailer challenges existing forms and conventions of horror teaser trailers, for example it isnt clear what happens to the girl, usually in horror films the 'final girl' survives but in this trailer nobody knows what happens to her. It isnt bad that this happens though as it would make more people want to find out what happens to the girl, as it may be differant to every other slasher horror film.

Our horror trailer 'dead end' (first cut)

Mood board

My mood board shows the type of horror films i like and what i like them to include. It has pictures of a supernatural films and slashers. My mood board shows that i like a horror movie, slasher or supernatural with lots of gore, usually with a male villain, and a female victim, with a setting in a grave yard, church or the woods.

This gives me ideas to want to make a slasher trailer, with lots of gore, set in a woods or graveyard, with a male villain.

Friday 13th (2009 re-make) teaser trailer

The trailer shows the genre of the film as a horror as there are lots of clips of dark scenes and people scared, running around with torch light. It does have the name of the film on it, but its at the end of the trailer so you have to watch the whole thing before it tells you what it's called. It doesn't include the name of the stars in it, but does say who the director is and what other similar films they have directed.

REC film teaser trailer

At the start of the trailer its difficult to judge what genre it is, it seems like a thriller about firefighters, but as the trailer gets nearer the end it gets a bit more strange and appears more like a horror. It has the name of it near the end, between quick shots of the strange girl, and shows very little of her to encourage the audience to see the film and find out whats going on. It doesn't have any information throughout the trailer of who's starring in the film or who the director is, instead it has a small amount of writing to set the scene, but not enough to let the audience know whats properly going on.


house of fears film teaser trailer

The trailer shows parts of the film where the characters are confronted by their 'darkest fears' this makes it scary for the audience to watch, and it also has some of the other conventions that horrors have like lots of darkness and strange things happening. At the beginning of the trailer it has a narrative for build up before it shows you clips of the film. There is no information of who is in the film just a narrative all the way through giving you some sort of idea of what is happening. It waits until the end to tell you what the film is called so you have to watch the whole trailer before you get what it is.

The return of the repressed:
The theory from 'Freud' that an unconscious thought or feeling would constantly be there in mind, constantly pressing to access the executive fictions of the mind in order to be discharged. It would be dismissed by the ego as a forbidden idea but the idea would find a disguise and surface as a symptom.

the haunting in connecticut

This is a good horror trailer, as it doesnt give too much away of what is going to happen because it shows some of the strange bits of the film, but you don't really understand what is going to happen until you see the film.