Film poster - font research

To make our film poster, we had decisions to make on which one would be suitable to represent our genre and concept of the trailer. We got our font choices from the website www.dafont.com Here are screenshots of the top ones we liked:
Font research powerpoint

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Film trailer/poster - market research

According to our brief we know that the target audience age is between 15-24. This covers all social groups that fit into this category who enjoy watching horror films. So we set up two social network sites (Facebook and Twitter) which are known to be very popular. We also thought this would be a great platform to first advertise our trailer because news spreads very fast on these sites. Here are the set-up images below that were created to showcase our trailer to an audience - and for them to 'like' 'retweet' or comment.

Facebook page

Twitter page

UPDATED AFTER ONE WEEK

Filming - Behind the Scenes

Here are a couple of shots that we took of the scenes we are filming in. It shows props and characters that are featured in our trailer, when we were preparing to set up the scene. Taking these photos of our production making shows how we worked independently together, using technology such as camera's to create our shot storyboards. 

First location= Imogens room (Sarah and Rebeccas Uni Room)

Second location= Kallys house (Dinner party)

Target Market

For our film trailer we knew that we wanted it to be rated a 15 certificate therefore we chose to market our film/trailer at people aged between 15-24 ad we felt that they would be the age group most likely to watch it. To market this age group we decided to create a twitter and facebook page as we know 15-24 year olds are very engaged with social networking sites. Below is are a few images that show what this target market are into:

Shot List by Location

Shot list by location

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Above is the shot list that we created to establish where each of our shots are going to take place. It includes movement, angles and lengths of each shots including what characters are featured. When filming we are relying on this enormously so no shots get missed and the whole filming process goes smoothly well.

Schedule

November schedule


 We started filming in November with all the shots and scenes that we had in mind.  We set dates that would be suitable for both me and Chelsea to set up in certain locations. This allowed us to be more organised so we could contact our characters on date, times and locations. 

December schedule

In December it was more packed up schedule with locations set. This was because we had half term so figured this an opportunity to add more dates for filming. Also it was nearing close to the time of our deadline. 

The characters

Rebecca: (main character)

She is an only child who was living with her mum before. Her father left the family at a young age but left inheritance money. She has grown up living a rich lifestyle. She has now come to university to study grand art and French. While living at home she was on medication to control her illness that she has had from young age. However, since coming to university, to feel more like herself she has stopped taking the medication which has made her paranoid and obsessed with making new friends, especially with one girl, her flatmate, Sarah. 

Sarah: (the other main character)

Innocent, young girl, who has come from an average family, has come to university to study Journalism. She has quite a big family and is seeking freedom while away and make new friends. Sarah and Rebecca form a girly friendship that reminds her of home, so she takes to Rebecca  as her sister. When finding out about her medication she becomes a little more way of Rebecca but still remains friends with her. Even when her new friend, Alison, warns her she doesn’t want to believe it because she actually likes Rebecca. 

Alison: (the friend)

Friend of Sarahs, who Rebecca becomes increasingly jealous of. She is the character that Rebecca chases when she see’s her walking back from a lecture late at night. She is also a party girl

Shot Storyboard

We first created our shot storyboards on paper using pencil, we did this because any mistakes or errors that we wanted to cut and erase could be done. We then developed it further by writing underneath the type of shot we wanted to be shown on that particular scene. It is also done in chronological order so we don't confuse ourselves when shooting for our trailer. 

Shot Storyboard on Prezi

Practise filming #blur focus - outside

Today we got given the task of recording a short clip of ourselves using a Cannon SLR camera and a Zoom Handy Recorder. We were taught the practical features on the camera, zooming in and out of focus, recording at different angles and using different lenses for a certain effect. The recorder we also experimented with, we saw how far the sound can travel and how clear the voices can be heard. We practiced inside and outside, because our script has certain scenes inside locations. From this exercise I have taken away with me more knowledge how a camera and microphone work in conjunction with each other. This is mainly done in the editing process, where we match each scene to the voice clip given from the recorder. 

Here is the clip below (outside location):

In this clip, we were experimenting the blur and focus on a character. At first it starts with a long shot where you can see the background by me, then the camera gradually gets closer and it turns into a midshot. From this point the camera man (Chelsea) started to play around with the effects and pick which one was suitable. This is definitely what we will have to consider for our own horror trailer. 




In this second clip, it was more about becoming comfortable with the camera and trying to keep a steady hand. Because we never had the support of tri-pod, we figured that using the handheld effect would also be good practise, because from our research we knew that this was a common convention used in horror movies and trailers. 


What we took away from this filming was different to when filming the #scary door. We chose not to do an acting scene, but instead get the character to stand still and act natural, this was so you could identify the blur and focus of the character and background. 

Adorno theory - culture industry

Adorno (1903-69) argued that capitalism fed people with the products of a 'culture industry' - the opposite of 'true' art - to keep them passively satisfied. Popular culture was identified as the reason for people's passive satisfaction and lack of interest in overthrowing the capitalist system. Theodor W. Adorno states 3 points to his argument.

Theodor W. Adorno

The first: 
"Adorno suggested that culture industries churn out a debased mass of unsophisticated, sentimental products which have replaced the more 'difficult' and critical art forms which might lead people to actually question social life."
This means that he argued that society should appreciate much more high class culture and the things that contain it, such as, fine art, opera and theatre shows,  instead of society accepting that basic things in life, such as mass/popular culture. 
Adorno could possibly argue this point to my horror trailer by saying that the genre is not the stereotypical genre included in high culture. 


Second: 
"False needs are cultivated in people by the culture industries. These are needs which can be both created and satisfied by the capitalist system, and which replace people's 'true' needs - freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity, genuine creative happiness"
What Adorno means by this, is that by society creating a culture where people believe that materialistic items. For example, using the example of my horror trailer; Adorno would say that the message I am presenting in my trailer does not give the audience much advantage to explore there own needs, they are just consuming the message that I am giving to them in my trailer.  


Third: 

"Commodity fetishism (promoted by the marketing, advertising and media industries) means that social relations and cultural experiences are objectified in terms of money. We are delighted by something because of how much it cost."
Adorno's final point he makes is that the culture that we now live in, is surrounded with the idea that we need spend money to gain the finest things. What he would say about my trailer is that I am using this advantage to get more of a profit rather than creating a genuine horror trailer. 

Planning stock characters

On the Celtx programme, once completing our first draft of the script we then planned more detail to the characters
On this program we can put all our ideas into one place without no information getting lost or deleted. When asked about our characters we were asked to write a detailed description of their personality, what their role in the trailer is and personal background information. Here is an example of a character profile:

Rebecca:

Sarah:

Alison:

Receptionist:

Practise filming #scary door

The aim of the task was to create a short film clip of someone approaching a 'scary door' which is usually seen in horror films to create tension of what might be behind it. Below is the 'Scary Door' clip that my group and I constructed. We filmed this short clip in college with one of the actors first seen running through a door, approach a corner and then slowly open a door. We did about 5 to 6 takes when creating the scene, and mixed some of the different take shots together in our editing. 


When filming this short clip I believe that there are many strengths that are recognisable. Firstly, from the actions of the character, it is obvious to the audience  what is happening. They can begin to establish an idea that the character is maybe running away from something or she lost and unaware of her surroundings. This is important for when we make our own trailer we want to get our message and type of genre across to the audience efficiently. Another strength I believe, is that we attempted to use different shots for the first time on a camera. We used close-ups of the character from behind and some long shots from the front. The attempts of using this show how we are trying to become more confident in the way we film and hopefully this will develop in time for the real filming.


Although, we did use two different shots, I think it would have been much more effective if we added elements to the shots such as panning or tracking. This could have been done at the moment where the character is coming through the door and when the camera is aimed her the feet. Another considered improvement is in the editing; we could have added a soundtrack to make the scene seem much more dramatic, however, the  silence used, I think adds some intense to the scene itself.


Overall, I enjoyed practising with the camera a possible scene that is used in horror films. It also made me plan much more into my own trailer, in the things that I should and shouldn't do and to consider the audience much more and how they might interpret things.

Screenplay and first draft synopsis

Once developing a brief idea of how we want things to be produced and planned out, we decided that the script should be planned out also. We included information if its an interior or exterior scene and also whether its day or night. Now that are title for the film and character names are established, we wrote our first draft screenplay. We did this on a software program called Celvix. Now below in picture formats:

Screenplay pdf

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Now that we had established what our main idea for the trailer would be, we decided to have a go in writing a first draft synopsis. We knew that it would be our first draft because as we go along, some ideas may be cut or changed, so we didn't want to make any final decisions. Here below is the first draft. 

Synopsis: 

When first year college student Sarah arrives at university, she cannot wait to make new friends, socialise and more importantly, further her ambition to be a fashion journalist. In the mean time, Rebecca, an emotional and unstable student is also joining the same university, in a mind frame of disturbing thoughts that lead her to hurting people. Sarah and Rebecca become friends, and soon Rebecca reveals her true colours of a psychopath. How long will Sarah survive before its too late for her to run?

Brief plan

Once we had our idea in place, we had to think of the specified structure we would want to use to make our trailer. To decide on things that we want to feature in our trailer. Features such as, fade-ins, credits, voiceovers and typography sentences. We decided to open with fade-ins that would be black screen with typography on top of them, then a scene shown. We also decided that we would include production company titles, to make it seem like a real film trailer. Voiceovers we didn't really want to use, so instead we decided that on some parts of the trailer where scenes are shown continuously, we would use some dialogue from the film to help the story flow along for the audience to listen too. All the plans were made on A3 sheets of paper.

We also decided on locations that we could possibly film at. Some were interior locations, and others were exterior. Examples of some locations were: college, forest/park, inside a house ... 

On another sheet of paper we began to establish the type of shots and the length of the shots in seconds. In the description we also planned which characters are featured in the shot.

Researching age certification

Source: British Board of Film Classification.

Suitable only for 15 years and over

No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest  terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.

The Idea

Now that most of my research is complete and up to date, I am now put into my film production group which is me, Chelsea and Ishmail. Already we have had to come up with a concept for the horror film trailer. Together, we looked at the idea of a physiological horror sub-genre where the focus is on the main character becoming obsessed with another character and acting completely abnormal. There have been several films that use this brief and have produced effective films. One example is 'Obsessed' which features a woman working as a secretary in an office becoming sexually intrigued by a high status working married man. She begins to go out of her way to spend as much time with him, and becomes increasingly jealous of the man's wife and plots to kill her. However, we recognised that our brief was to produce a film trailer that is aimed at teenagers and a certificate 15. So we have changed a few things slightly to achieve our brief instead. 

Here is the trailer and synopsis for the film Obsessed. 

Our Idea:

(Our victim) starts university and is introduced to (Our villain) at a freshers party in the first week of starting university. They become close girl-friends, going shopping together, watching films, partying and doing  girly things. On one visit to the villain's home, in a conversation to her mum, our victim finds out that she is on medication. After realising this, there is a shift in the villain's behavior. Other friends of the victim who talk to her, experience frightening threats off the villain, the victim's boyfriend is also feared for his life when the villain says she will kill him if he doesn't leave her alone. 


Following on from our idea, we needed a final name for our film. Because of the film example shown above called 'Obsessed' we also thought it would be quite effective having a one worded title, as our concept of the film is quite similar. However, we had to search for a similar word that had the same meaning. We came up with the word 'ATTACHED' through searching on Thesaurus. Other words we came up with were:

DELUDED
OBSESSION
ONE GIRL FRIEND
THE HOUSEMATE

The two main charcters in our trailer are females, and they will be the most featured. We research most popular girls names top 100, and picked our two names from their website. 

Source: http://www.bounty.com/baby-names/girls-names?page=4