Editing my first draft

Here a print screen of the editing process. I used final cut express which was extremely difficult to get to grips with when trying to use it for my first draft.

Things I've learnt

I've learnt how to put all my scenes together which was pretty easy process. Of simply dragging my scenes downwards and placing them together in the order that I preferred. Another thing I've learnt which was crucial was putting in a flicker effect. This involved using the cut tool and cutting scenes into small bits. Then I would space them out which would allow the screen to go black before going back to the image.

Peer assessment

After completing the first draft of my coursework I decided to get some reviews from people who have already done A2 media. A previous member of my school visited our media class and so I took the opportunity to ask him to look at my first draft and to give me a couple of things that I should do to improve.

Some of the things that Lewis said that worked well were:

• He thought that some of the pink colour filters worked well. Particularly in the second establishing shot. When I asked him to elaborate further he said that it helped to foreshadow the murder and death that was to come. He also said the by using pink it alluded to the blood that the first complete scene was filled with.
• The next thing he said that he liked was the handheld camera work. This is something that I've tried to implement subtlety into some bits of the trailer. It also shows that my research into the handheld camera work used in the paranormal activity series was paying diffidence.
• He said the editing was sharp and focused.
• Mise en scene- He liked the consistency of camera angles as well as the use of black and whites which he found profound and striking.
• One piece of constructive criticism was that although he liked the music he thought that I could sharpen some aspects of it.



Reactions to my first draft

Here is a printscreen from my youtube page with reactions from people who have viewed the first draft of my trailer.  Most of the responses offered some valuble contributions like constuctive criticism that can help me further improve my work. And other people praised some aspects that they liked from the trailer, which hopefully I will keep the same.

"supercaba"  said that they enjoyed the way there was a constant use of cuts, but most importantly they said that I used them approprietly. This is interesting because I took the risk of using a stuttering effect which meant blending establishing shots with quick cuts of the creepers victim. And its good to see that people like it. Moreover they said that the music used was perfect. I happy to hear this because when editing the trailer is was important to have a slow and mellow music in the beginning, but as soon as the trailers main scenes begin to kick into action I wanted the 2nd piece of music to be piercing and jarring.

The second valuble response was made by "hamsandwich" . She reiterated "supercaba" point on the music. As they  both enjoyed the slow and tense build up that the piano music was able to create.  However they did't like the pink colour pallete that was used primarily in the establishing shot at the beginning of the trailer. They argued that it should be a much more profound and suggested using a darker colour like red. This was a intresting idea because using red as the dominant colour in the trailer will mix well with the font colour of the superimposes which are all red. They enjoyed the use of cuts/jump cuts as it had a strong and powerful effect. However they did identify some continuality errors. Like some shots having a different colour pallete to others.

The Creeper [Teaser Trailer] Draft

Here is my first draft of my trailer. The trailer starts of with a superimpose with words " In a quite peaceful neighbourhood". I did this because it immediately sets the tone and establishes to the audience where the film will be taking place. Straight afterwards we use a establishing shot. We have intercut this with flickers from a scene that will be reviewed later on in the trailer.

Mise en scene
In terms of mise en scene like in my previous blog where i talked about dutch angle you can see that almost all our shots our comprised of this camera angle. We have done this to create a sense of uneasiness. Moreover we used it in order to conform to the conventions of the horro genre.

Lighting- Becasue it was a first draft we tried to darken some of the scenes to create a spooky atmosphere. However we did't do much with the lighting because we encountered some difficulities when trying to add some effects like some cross dissolves. But in a future draft will definetly try and improve the lighting and add a colour palette for example more blue or green into the movie.

Sound- For the majority of the trailer we used a slow and mellow piano music in order to set a gothical tone. But as soon as the trailer pics up in intensity we used a slow building violin that rapidly increased in pitch. I did this to disorientate the viewer because having a high pitch sound helps to foreshaddow the death and murder that is about to occur.

Length of trailer

Due to the changes in my story I decided to increase the length of the trailer. I've done this because firstly it will allow my trailer to feel like it has its own narrative. This is because the first half of the trailer consists of the creepers first victim being killed in his "trap" which is essentially an empty hallway. In the second half of the trailer the second victim will be systematically stalked and will eventually be led into his trap. But unlike the beginning of the trailer I will not reveal exactly what happened to her. However at the end of the trailer I will have a short clip after the name of the movie is revealed which will show blood on the creepers hand. Therefore showing that something that something bad has happened, but also leaving the rest to the audiences imaginations.

How long should do I want the trailer?
I'm aiming at the trailer being around the 2:20/2:20 mark. my justification for this is that other horror trailers like the recent "scream 4" also had a trailer with a similar length.

Micro element- Mise en scene

For our teaser trailer we have targeted the mise en scene and in particular the camera angles for our trailer. I have chosen to use dutch angles in our trailer because  it is conventional in  the horror/thriller genre. A dutch angle is a a tilt shot where the camera is titled in order to create a tension and to disorientate the viewer. It was a camera technique often used by renowned directer Albert Hitchcock.

The key to making this shot even more profound is the lighting. During the editing our our trailer I hope to make the trailer predominantly black and white because it will make the dutch angles stand out more and as a consequence the atmosphere the trailer could potentially create would be really creepy.

First day of filming

Our first day of filming was both a complicated but a extremely fulfilling day. We chose to film in locations that were primarily near out school of bishop Douglass. This was because it was only a short distance away and this allowed us up to 2 hours to focus on shooting, and it allowed us time to get the right shots.

Timing of shooting- We chose to shoot earlier in the morning for numerous reasons. Firstly because it improved the mise en scene. As it was extremely foggy and so it would create a relatively sinister atmosphere.

Here are a couple of pictures from the shoot.

In this picture is an image of "The creeper". Who is of course systematically stalking the protagonist. One of the things we noticed during filing was that the mask looked brilliant and extremely scary.



Here me and jack. I was the cameraman (director of cinematography)

Here's a picture of both Jack and Rimante. Rimante who is our protagonist in the film and she preformed well.





What problems did we face?

• Well one problem was that we had to have many takes just to get the perfect shot. This was both time consuming and we lost a lot of time.
• Also we ran out of time so it could be argued that we did't have enough time to perfect everything.

Here is a short clip of one of the scenes we filmed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKNcXhXLdUQ 

A2 media test shots

A2 media second test shot

Camera angles that I will be using

In this blog I will be discussing the range of camera shots I will be using an why.

Establishing shot

The first shot I will definitely be using is an establishing shot. In my trailer I will be using 2 of them. There are many reasons that I have done this. Firstly because I thought that it sets the tone, and shows the reader where the movie is taking place. Another reason I have used it is because I want the beginning of the trailer to have a slow build up. This will link well to the music that I intend to use at the beginning of the trailer which will be slow in tempo, and thus will create a sinister atmosphere.

                                                                   Close up shots

 The next camera angle that I hope to use is a close up shots. I intend to use them primarily in the beginning of the trailer as it will be cut together with  the establishing shots. When I hopefully cut them together I will add a flickering effect. This will tease the audience becuase tfirstly they will be able to see victim number 1's face but at the same time the image will be flashing by so qucikly that they will be unable to see what exactly is going on.

Extreme close up shots

I intend to use 2 extreme close ups in the trailer. One at the very end of the film. As in horror trailers one of its conventions is to have very quick scene at the end of the trailer. Such conventions were used for instance for the trailer of "prometheus". 

Low angle shots

Low angle shots help to show a characters emotional instability. As well as this in the context of my trailer it will show that the creeper who is stalking his victims is in a position of power and his victim is in a vulnerable position.

Long shots

I want to use a long shot at least once in my trailer to highlight the loneliness of the protagonist.

Medium shot

Medium shots are one of the most used shots in a film. I want to use couple because it will allow me to show the victims distress without the need to go to close to the character. 

Flicker shots

Although I couldn't find a picture of the shot. A flicker shot is where a image flicks on and off from the screen. It helps to tease the audience because they won't be able to quite grasp what they have seen. 

High angle shot

High angle shots work well when showing how someone is vulnerable. I want to use it near the middle of the trailer where I finally reveal the first victims dead body.

Music

Here are the 2 songs/music I plan to use in my horror/thriller trailer. However there are a couple of other songs that could possible be used when I undergo the editing process.

The first video is absolutely perfect for creating tension. It uses loud screeching noises that slowly escalates by getting louder, and louder, and louder. Moreover, its a convention of the horror genre as this kind of music is used frequently in the genre, and especially in teaser trailers where very little is given away.

The next video is another piece of music that I will be using. Unlike the first video that will be towards the end of the trailer this music will be played primarily at the beginning. I like this music because the sound of the piano is slow but also poignant as well as the fact that it will set the tone of the trailer from the beginning. Also hopefully it will help to  add a kind of Gothic feel to the trailer.


Here are some other music that are still under consideration.

 The music in this video to the first music sample . The reason why we haven't definitely chosen to be in our trailer is because it would be hard to edit down (and time consuming)  and also because it contains a lot of random noises and I thought that this would be too distracting. However because one of the key scenes in our trailer takes place in a park this song is still under consideration.

I like the song  because it combines elements of the 2 songs we have already chosen to use.  It uses both a piano and has a loud screeching noise in the background. I will possible try to experiment with this song and see whether its works better.

Orginisation of actors and clothing

For our updated story we decided to use only 3 actors for our story. One of the reasons we used a Small amount of actors is because we didn't want to give to much away, and also because it would build on the sense of claustrophobia. What I mean by this is that it

The 2 female characters are both blond and white. We did this because we wanted to conform to horror stereotypes. As for example classic horror films like "scream" usually portray them as damsels in distress.  I thought this would be an effective way of  appealing to our target audience which is the 18 to 24 age demographic because typically people watch horror films because they know what to expect and so by doing this it goes a long way to appealing to the 18 to 24 age group. This also links in with collective identity because argubaly I am  going against the burden of representation because arguably young females of today are presented as much more independent and with stronger and forceful personalities .However I decided that I wantedthe girls to be weaker and fragile not only to be conventional, but also because it would make the villian seem much more monstrous because in esscence he is praying on the weak.

Clothing- We made the conscious decision to use of a lot of red to disturb the viewer but this indirectly would attract our target demographic because the use of blood is coventional and also because it highlights to the viewer of the traler that the movie has a serious tone to it. And thereore this is another way that my target demographic can be attracted to the film.

One of our actors had to wear white, and I did this because I thought that it would of been more pratical when filming as we wanted to use a lot of blood in the opening of the trailer. And it would of been difficult for us to ask one of our actors to bring an item of clothing of which we would of had to use food dye. So white clothing made more pratical sense.

Changes to the story

Me and my partner Jack decided to make changes to the story. There are various reasons behind this.

What are the changes?
Well unlike the previous story that included more characters our new and updated story has only 3 characters. The reasons I've chose to do this is because I wanted the horror trailer to fill very claustrophobic. And it created a intresting juxtaposition between the beginning of the trailer which will have the a superimpose of " In a quite peaceful neighborhood" which would typically allude to thriving society with a lot of people, and in contrast by the trailer only having around 3 characters it shows that the creeper's victims are in fact very alone and deeply isolated.

Story
The new story for the trailer starts of with several establishing shots which are cut together which flickers of a girl who looks to have been murdered. She will be covered in blood, which will help to distress the viewer. Then the full scene of her murder is revealed around one quarter the way through the trailer. Victim number 1 tries to open the door but the door but the doors shut. She turns around but no one seems to be there. The lights turn on and off. Then we are finally reveal the creeper standing ominously, waiting. The creeper proceeds to brutally murder her.

As the trailer develops te creeper has chosen his next victim. He slowly begins to stalk her. As he slowly leads her into his trap. But the trailer abruptly ends. Making it hard to determing whether or not the she has been killed.

This story is much shorter than the original plan. However I feel that by shorting the story it will help it to be much more conventional. For instance the trailer will contain almost no dialogue, because we don't won't to reveal anything.

Storyboard update

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Kevin and Jack a2 media blog

Mise en scene

For preparation as well as planning I've been actively looking on youtube.com for videos about final cut pro and the kinds of filming effects that are available in order to enhance the visuals in my trailer.  And there are many.

The first video I looked at was a tutorial on creating a "faded spotlight" effect. Which is essentially darkens the outside of scenes so that some of the original image is blurred out, whilst the rest of the image is in black and white. The effect of this is that it gives a haunting visceral look that would work very well for scary scenes and of course horror trailers. As well as by obscuring some the setting it creates intrigue. Basically , to achieve the desired effect you have to draw a shape, and its this shape that will effectively be the center of the image. So theoretically if you draw a circle the scene will be shaped like that. Here the video below

The next visual effects video I looked at was a video about creating a vintage/retro visual effect.  This is because I've been thinking  that if I implement this kind of technique into my trailer it can potentially act as a way of paying homage to the great films in the 80's because the cinematography would feel dated etc.

The video unfortunately does not have someone explaining what to do with audio. Instead in the description box its explains step by step what you have to do to achieve such an effect.

Mise en scene in horror/thrillers  trailers is of added significance compared to other genres because some horror trailers typically can contain little dialogue. And its down to the mise en scene and the cinematography, in particular the color palette(black and white) to make a strong impact.

The reason that this relates to my work is because although my trailer does have a fair amount of dialogue, I want the visuals to be striking. Firstly because it creates a lasting impression on my niche audience and also because it shows that I have looked at the conventions of horror trailer and replicated it.

Locations

Media locations and filming on Prezi

Problems with the title

The title of our film had to be changed becuase we found out that there was a movie that had a name that was too similar.

The title we first wanted was to call it creep.  However we found out there had already been a movie with that name.

Here is the movie poster for 2004 movie creep. Which ironically is a horror film set in London which tells the story of a girl who gets trapped in the London ungerground and has to find a way out.  But because of our audience research our friends really like the title creep and therefore we did't want to change to title to drastically . So we then decided to call it "the creep". But I thought that it was too similar to the existing film and I was aware that copyright could potentially be a problem. So then we changed it again slightly and decided that we are going to call it "the creaper". This was a good sugesstion because it maintained some of the elements of the title we originally wanted, but also made it sound a bit more creepy and profound.

The story

The story of our movie revolves around a girl who is seeing and hearing things. But the state of her mental health is undetermined. She tries to go to the police station and its interrogated by a rogue police officer who after listening to her story dismisses it. But there's a dark undertones in the manner in which he talks to her, which gives the impression that either he's crazy himself or he hiding something that will be revealed later.

She tries desperately to confine with her boyfriend who dismisses her troubles as nothing more than a joke. As the trailer progresses we see scenes of her running in a park. As as she runs she notices a message for her on the tree and that completely freaks her out.

"The Park scene"

for our park scene we have the vision of our lead actress jogging through the park as you do. a very normal thing for people to do especially when they are worried about their health. so as you can tell her guard should and would be down.  we want to capture her jogging past bushes and trees using longs shots mostly. our main girl will run past a tree and see a note on it. we will do a close up to the note to see what it says. then a cut and and a close up on her face to capture her reaction.


"The bedroom scene"
our main character will come into the room after having a shower. we will don't a mid shot from a closet in her room to give the vibe that someone is inside of the room watching. she will see a "gift" on her bed. this gift will be a heart shaped box. when she opens the box we will do an angle looking up at her screaming. we are going to do this so no one can see whats in the box except for her. this will create a buzz and excitement which will make people want to see the film.


Character profile

Rimante- Characters name- Laura
Character profile
Laura is a blonde stereotypical teenager. But beneath the surface is a very, very insecure person. She at times can behave irrationally and also at times can behave paranoid manner. In the film she begins to see things. Are they real or not? 

Jack- Killer

jack will be playing the anonymous killer in the trailer. He will be wearing the blank white mask and a hoody which will cover the sides of his face.  And will be stalking Laura.

interrogator- PC- smith

 He will be playing  the "investigator" in the trailer he will be asking her questions about the things she has supposedly been seeing. He won't be convinced by her stories. The way he talks to her will be very patronising, and quite creepy in order to build suspense within the trailer. In the trailer he will be wearing a suit and a coloured tie. And he will also be wearing classes. Because we thought it would add mystery to the character.

Vincent- Our friend Vincent will be playing one of Laura's friends who dismisses her claims.  He will be wearing a school uniform.

Props the killers mask

Me and Jack finally chose the mask that we wanted to use in the production of the teaser trailer. As you can see we have been influenced by the classics movie villains within the horror genre. The mask is completely white which gives that classic/retro vibe. Also the mask doesn't cover all of the face. Initially we thought that this would be a problem. Until we realized that it would make the villain look more off putting and disturbing. 

Pitch

Pitch +film+trailer555

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How does the villian and trailer relate to the ancilary task

For some research for my anchilary task I looked at how the design of the villian links into the actual design of the teaset poster. Here is a poster from the friday the 13th horror series. Just like my previous blog I looked into the reasoning behind the design of the mask. Now I want to see how the look of the villian can possible shape the way the poster looks. In friday the 13th  the antagonist Jason is essentially defined soley because the distinctinveness of his mask. And so the film company decided to use his mask as the basis  for both of this posters.

The first poster is an image of Jason where he seems to be in the middle of a forest. The designers have used the lighting through the use of darkning the outside of the poster to make Jason stand out more. This immediately shows that audience that this film will wither centre around him or possible he will have at least a major role to play in the film.

The second poster is possibly the most interesting. Its simple but probably the more effective of the two. The poster simply uses a image of Jason's iconic mask and then has a black background. Not only does it make the villian stand out, but also it adds to the ambiguity of the movie. Thats because it doesn't give anything away like locations etc. Also because the villian Jason is so iconic and embedded in pop culture the film company paranout banked on the fact that the audience would easily recongnise him. And in doing so they are appealing to there niche audience.Another reason why I like the poster so much is because it not to complicated to produce.

Designs

The main concept of my film trailer is that a person is stalking our main character. And because my trailer is a horror/thriller the design of our antagonist has to be scary and provocative in order to capture the imaginations of our target audience. So I decided to look at some previous horror movies in order to get some ideas, and ultimately to look at what makes these villains so appealing and distinct.

Halloween

One of the most iconic movie villains of all time is Mike Myers who was the surreal killer in the movie Halloween(1978). What probably makes his mask so iconic is its simplicity. It covers his who face and the only color on it is white. And that's what makes it so scary. I think if the mask had been overly complicated it wouldn't of taken some of the ambiguity away from the character. Another thing to add is that the mask does not necessarily fit his head properly. Its as if the mask is trying to peel away from his skin. This possible alludes to the fractured mental stability of the character. Finally the beauty of this mask is that its simple to produce, and so therefore if I were to use the concept in my film trailer it shouldn't be to difficult to replicate some of the elements of the mask.


Friday the 13th

Another classic horror villain is Jason from the Friday the 13th film franchise. Although Jason is wearing a hockey mask, the concept is similar to that of Halloween. The predominant color is white, and some bits in red. And it has several holes ripped into the mask. What is clear to identify here is that the simpler the mask the more scary and striking the villain is. Its not like the film makers are trying to go over the top to frighten the audience, its as if to say the lack of decoration makes the audience more interested in what exactly the motives of the killer is. The lack of effort from the villain to look intimidating implies that something has happened to them in there lives to make them so dispondent, consequently the audience when watching the trailer will be eager to see what has led to the formation of the murderer.

Saw

The last film I looked at to investigate the designs of the villain is the first  saw film. I did this because saw is very modern and so it would be interesting to see whether in contemporary films, film makers feel the need to change the design ethos in order to appeal to cinema goers of today. The Mask is once again similar to the previous masks I have already analysed. The use of white as the main color. And red on the side to symbolize blood etc. However the addition of a wig makes the villain seem even more disturbing, and probably is the main reason that the character of jigsaw has become a part of pop culture, just like other notable horror villains,  Freddy Kruger, Jason, Mike Myers etc.

Coursework research: similar insitutions

 In this blog I have looked at been given the task to look at similar insitutions to see whether they use the same conventions. So for this blog I decided to look at the music industry and percifically horror/thriller music videos.

This is a video from Rihanna called disturbia. The themes and connatattions of the video are based on the horror/thriller genre. I have chosen this video percifically because of the composistion of the shots and camera angles as well as the fact that the use of editing is extremely intriguing.

The first thing to notice in the vidoe is the cinematography and in particular the lighting and colour palette. The director of the music video has used dark blue's and greys to add the the sinister atmosphere, and this slowly builds tension. This is something that I too hope to implement in my work. Then the director has used editing through the use of excessive cuts and jump shots. The effect of this is that it gives the illusion that something supernaturnal or transcedental is on the agenda. And it elludes to the fact that the characters are not safe. Another thing that interested me was the use of non digectic sound. The music slowly builds in the beggining, with a piano and other instruments used sparingly to add to the suspense. Me and my partner Jack were intitially playing with the idea of using slow music in the beggining of the trailer and the effective way that it is used in this video confirms my beleive we should try and use it.

Here is a screen caption from the video. The director has used lens flares and alos some lighting tricks to distort the images.

The lighting is also powerfully used. The director has some how been able to accentuate the colour of yellow all around the room. This helps to make the characters stand out and makes the imagery much more profound. Thie importance of this is that these images stay firmly in the viewers head long after seeing the video. This links in with my movie trailer because we want some of the imagery to be earry and powerful to the point where if we were to release the fictional movie the images that are in the trailer will have been running minds for a prolonged period of time , that it got to the point that they were desperate to see the actual movie.



But the most important thing I can take from this process is the use of camera angles. Here's 2 captions showcasing  both a low angle and a high angle. The low angle has been used to show the emotional fragility of the character and this has been juxtaposed with a  high angle that's highlights her loneliness and venerability. And because the protagonist in my film trailer is going to be character who is very emotionally unstable, the use of these shots will appropriately convey this wide range of emotions without the need for any dialogue.

Audience research- Title of the movie

In this blog I did some more  audience research. I wanted to involve some of my friends in the production process.  This is a image of my partner Jack's facebook page where 2 people from out media class commented on which one of the five movie titles that we have been thinking to use for the film trailer.

The Creep
Stalker
Right behind you
im watching you
no where to hide
Out of the suggested movie titles the creep was the one which most people liked. Rimante said that she liked the title creep because it did't give to much away but at the same time gives the viewer an insight into want to expect when the movie will contain.

Vincent agreed with Rimante in that naming the movie creep was a good idea. But he suggested that we remove the word "the" so that it adds to the ambiguity of the title.

I think Vincent's suggestion of calling the film simply "creep" is an excellent idea. So when I meet up with my partner Jack I will discuss the idea and see weather he wants to adopt it as our title. So what i've learnt from this type of research is that by asking my friends who also fall in my target demographic on what they think of our ideas, I can ultilise some of there ideas and potentially it could improve my final product.

Coursework planning and research: Target audience and collective identity

For this blog post I'm going to investigate both the uses and gratifications theory and also collective identity. This is a topic

Collective identity
In modern cinema movies directors always have to consider "The burden of representation". The burden of representation  describes the way that the history of social realist British film can weigh on the shoulders of film makers. So in essence what this means is that film makers are obligated to represent people in a certain way to reflect society as a whole. Here is an example:

Take "Bend it like Beckham". The director completely turns the burden of representation upside down. This is because the characters are from an Asian background. The film makers could of easily of stereotyped them by portraying  them as ultra traditionalist and strict. But instead it uses comedy to make fun of the culture and believes  but at the same time embracing what makes them the way they are.
Here's another example:

Kidulhood film makers such as Noel clark tried to depict teenagers and youth culture in general in the most realistic way possible. In order to highlight the massive problems that this particular social group are having to face. For instance gun crime,  drugs etc.
He does this by stereotyping the teenagers in the way that they talk, and act. For instance they talk in slang. This helps to establish what kind of people they are, and also helps to alienate them from the rest of society.

How does the burden of representation relate to my film trailer?
Well typically in horror films and of course trailers the burden of representation doesn't really apply. But in terms of using conventions like stereotypes and archetypes horror trailers almost universally implement them. For instance there's always there a girl who in distress, or the cocky guy who doesn't believe that there is a murderer on the loose for instance.

Coursework planning and research: Locations

Possible locations

There are a couple of locations that me and my partner Jack are thinking about using before wririntg the script.

Hampstead Heath is an almost perfect place to use for the trailer. It contains narrow pathways which are surrounded with trees to give the feeling of being trapped. This links well with some of the ideas that me and Jack want to include in the script. Additionally there's oppotunities to make te mise en scene even more creepy when we get into the editing room like turning the images black and white to add to the atmosphere. Lastly hapstead heath offers a great oppotunity to use a vast array of shots because of the hills slopes etc.

Bishop douglass schoool- Another location under consideration is my school bishop douglass. This is a good location because there's lots of oppotunities for exterior shots etc. and because it my school we will have more oppotunities to get the idea we have into reality.

Victoria park- The park provides probably the best opportunity for shooting . Because its very near my school. And also it's near an alleyway which will also be used for filming a couple of scenes.

One of the locations we haven't spoken about is a house.  Which will probably be the location where most of the footage takes place. Because we are still in the process of planning and research, the locations which I've outlined are not final and are subject to change. When we get further towards finally shooting the film  trailer I will post pictures of all the final locations.

Coursework planning and research:Target audience

Target audience

For planning and research I have tried to look at what kind of ideas and concepts I need to implenet in order to attract people to watch my film.

The target audience I hope to attract is the under 25 age demographic. Im doing this because I think that the under 25 age group are the main consumers of the  horror and thriller genre.  A primary example of this is the 2008 disater/horror film cloverdield. For this film the film distributor paramount used convergence through the use of viral marketing to gain publicity and anticipation.  The significance of this is that cloverfield was made for only 25 million dollars. This meant that it could not marketise in convetional ways eg posters, adverts because it couldn't afford it. And so it targeted the under 25 age group with advertising on facebook, creating fictional websites etc, and as a consequence the film was a hugh success. It made 170 million at the box office.

How do I attract the under 25 age group?

Well the first thing I should do is add convetions that will appeal to them in the trailer. What me and my partner could do is inlcude things like quotes from famous from fictional websites, newspapers and even from ordinary member's of the public.

This is from the first paranormal activity trailer from 2009. Here is a quote from a person who has already seen the movie.  This quote helps to excite the audience because it will show them the movie is of actual quality.

Timing
The release of the film is also an important factor. At the end of the trailer me and my partner Jack will reveal the release of the movie. We proposed that the fictional movie will be released in halloween. And possible christmas. The advantage of this is that usually horror trailers are released during halloween because halloween and horror are synonomous with each other and this means people during Halloween are eager to watch horror movies. This is further vindicated by the fact that the 3rd paranormal activity movie made 54 million in its opening weekend at the box office. Which is unprecendented for a horror movie.

Film poster
 Also in my ancilary task I will be making a film poster. What I could potentially do to gain anticipation and attract the under 25 age group is possible post my poster onto facebook. And hoepfully get some feedback from my friends. This would be essentially replicated the way film companies advertise there trailers on almost all forms of social media.

Setting
By using locations and settings that the under 25 age demographic will recongnise will help to familiarise the audience. For instace using schools and possible parks will show the target audience that the horror trailer will relate to them.

Take this scene from the trailer of the first paranormal activity. The location is in a house with ordinary people. This attracts its intedned target audience because it implies that the horrors that are filled within the movie could happen to any of them. And so there eager to see how the characters deal with there predicament.