Zoe Hartshorn’s Teaser Trailer Evaluation.Group: Zoe Hartshorn, Adam Armstrong, Anthony Eadson.
Film Trailer Name: The Uninvited.
My evaluation is of a Teaser Trailer that we have created in the last 12 weeks. In the group I worked with Adam Armstong and Anthony Eadson and together we produced a Teaser Trailer called “The Uninvited” which is about some teenagers who go into the woods that discover a strange presence. Stories of two other people who go into these woods never returned. The teaser Trailer that we decided to produce is of the horror genre. We have researched the different conventions of the horror genre and also the way in which horror is branded.
In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For my research on genre I looked at many different existing media products which are both for my ancillary task and for my video project. Firstly I looked at a number of different teaser trailers and posters from horror films of which have already been released. I looked at recent and also some old media products to see how conventions have developed over time. We looked in class at the first ever teaser trailer and this was Superman and we discussed how it is successful and the conventions of this. We discussed this and also the development of teaser trailers today. I looked again in detail at the very first teaser trailer ever shown which was for the film, Superman (1978)
Please click the clip below to view this teaser trailer.
This teaser trailer was very basic, however it still showed me that to make a teaser trailer it is not a necessity to show the audience a great deal of information. There doesn’t need to be any actually footage form the film as many teaser trailers are made in advance of filming just to let the public know this film is going to be coming out. It also isn’t necessary to introduce a character as this is developed throughout the film. The teasers trailers that we looked at as a group are more recent, such as, Paranormal Activity, Signs and The Fourth kind. Please click the link below to watch the teaser trailer for Paranormal Activity (2009).
The trailer that you just watched is an example of a more recent trailer for a horror film that has been successful. As a group we decided that we wanted to make a teaser trailer that was the genre of horror. We did lots of internet research and looked into different types of horrors that have been produced and distributed and found that there were many different sub categories of our horror genre. From the research that we did these of the results that we found for the different sub categories and films that linked into these.
Gothic horror –The Bloody Chamber/Dracula
Body horror – Dawn of the dead-Dead of Night
Torture porn - Hostel / Saw
Techno horror -The Paradox of the Posthuman
Psychological horror - The sixth sense/The others
Zombie horror – 28 Days later/ 28 Weeks later
Stalk and slash- Halloween/ the Texas chainsaw massacre
Together in our group we decided to make a genre hybrid. The reason for this was for us to ass extra conventions to the final product to create a wider audience viewpoint and appeal. During our editing we experimented with different filters and decided that we could try to use the surreal effect as this linked well with the theme of our film. To get this effect we used the colour corrector video filter from the options and also the glow distortion effect in video filters as we tried to give the footage we had created a red and glowing glow as it can be seen above. We really needed to make the editing effects fit with the theme of aliens in our film and this is where we developed our ideas of a red haze and tint from. In our initial plans we decided that using the effects of hand held camera shots would work very well, so to add to that effect we used the video recorder effect which made the film look as though it is live and filming. I thin k that this worked very very well and am pleased with the outcome of this effect. We also knew that we wanted our film to create enigmas from almost the very start of the film. Realism was such an important factor that we wanted to establish in our footage so the audience could believe it and also the effects used show that this could have been filmed on mobile phones or camera as many things are today that teenagers film. The effects of handheld cameras and also making it look as though it has been filmed on a phone have become very popular as we saw when we were looking through popular and successful trailers. It is very successful in making the audience feel as though they are there. There are many examples of the success of hand held cameras that we have looked at as a group however we decided as a group that this trailer "REC" is a good example.
The most important thing we had to do was to get the correct kind of branding for our project. We all decided that after doing our research we all liked the genre of horror and could all relate to horror films that we had seen. We talked about different horror films that we liked and looked at clips and trailers from, REC, Blair Witch Project, The Others and we saw that they had many thing in common. The main similarity is that it is mostly handheld camera movement. Blogs are also another important factor that we looked at as they give other peoples opinions on what they like and gives us ideas of what would please the audience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFWYUehm7cM
This is a good clip for showing the successful use of hand held camera work and the cinematography. The Blair Which Project is a Indie production however still had the great success as big Hollywood productions.
From the research that I have done I found that the innovative use of handheld shots in The Blair Witch Project was definitely a turning point as other films decide that this was a great success.The horror genre become more realistic and much more popular as apposed to a vampires and people rising from the dead. The effect of handheld camera shots has become very very popular these days and sine The Blair Which Project turned peoples heads by their use of it and the realistic approach it takes.
The audience is a very important factor of our project and to think about what audience we were aiming our project on so I set out our groups GRASS.
GRASS stands for the following,
• Gender
• Race
• Age
• Social Economic
• Status
- Both males and females are the desired audience.
- Males and Females of any race because from our research we know that this age range are the most likely to visit the cinema.
- The age range is 16-23 year old.
- Any Social Economic Status.
Working through GRASS we realised that to appeal to the younger audience of 16 we couldn't have too much violence, swearing, drug abuse, sex and gore in the film as in wouldn't be able to be rated at 16 and would decrease the desired success as younger audiences couldn't watch this at a cinema.
As a group we wanted to discover if our target audience also enjoyed the use of handheld films. We created a quick and simple questionnaire asking if people like the horror films that they watched to be realistic or not. All of the questionnaires that we received back said that they prefer realism.
Our project's advertising campaign be used to show that the film is realistic. I used my camera to take still images of locations to use so that there was realism in the images on your posters. We also likes the ideas of taglines as they have been used in The Blair Which Project and also REC. They are useful in drawing the viewer into a film by the information that they are given. Also it informs them before hand on maybe what they are going to be dealing with in the film and supports the genre. The films that we looked at in groups had very good taglines and as a group choose two trailers who's taglines were most interesting, informational, and eye catching taglines that made you want to watch more.
The two that we found most interesting for their taglines were from Quarantine and The Blair Witch Project.
Quarantine:
“On March 11, 2008 the government sealed of an apartment complex in Los Angeles. The residents were never seen again
No details
No witnesses
No evidence
Until now....”
The Blair witch:
“In October 1994 three media students disappeared in the woods near Burkitts Ville, Maryland whist filming a documentary….
a year later there footage was found....”
These tag lines create enigmas for the viewer even before they have seen any of the film. This is what the tag lines aim to do and its clear that these do it successfully. Personally when I read these tag lines I want to watch the films because it draws me in with the reality and excitement. We all decided that when I make the posters i shall include tag lines that we will create as a group and all agree on and also we could put in our trailer. Our final teaser trailer managed to challenge some forms of the handheld horror genre. This was by using the red tint and non diegetic music. I think that we managed to create a project that is similar to some of the successful films of horror genres however it is also different. We took into account throughout this all the different aspects and put it together the best we could.
How I used media technologies in the…
• Construction,
• Reasearch,
• Planning,
• Evaluation Stages.
I was familiar with some of the technology that we used as a film and photography student i had used the cannon video cameras and tripods. However last year in AS level media we used the program Imovie for editing our videos. This year we used Final Cut Pro which is a great program and you can create really amazing effects when editing.
Different websites and programs used in research, planning and production;
• http://www.blogger.com
• http://www.photobucket.com
• http://www.google.com
• http://www.creativecommons.com
• http://www.wikipedia.com
• http://www.totalfilm.com
• http://www.empireonline.com
• http://www.youtube.com
• http://www.slideshare.net/
Capturing technology used:
• Samsung st550 digital camera
• Cannon Video camera
• Tripod
Editing software used:
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Final Cut Express
The media technology we used the most during the production process was www.blogger.com. We posted at every stage of our production our initial ideas on here as evidence of what we are doing. This makes it easier for people to see what we are doing and to see where our ideas have developed from.
We found using Blogger was very useful as we all had access to it at any time and from anywhere and also being fee we were able to use it as much as needed. The ability that you have to change the layouts, themes and colours is useful as you can choose one that relates to your theme and genre. Our theme was called the dark woods skin. This was good because it set the scene of where our location would be. There were several issuses that we had with Blogger when we were using it. It crashed frequently whilst uploading images and footage and also went very slow at times but apart from that it is very useful and we managed to use it to its full potential.
During the project we also used Photoshop, we used Photoshop to create our ancillary tasks during filming we took stills around the area while we were filming these were used in my ancillary poster tasks. I am very good in photoshop after having an Alevel in Photography. I used my skills to create the best fim posters that i could. For my posters I used photographs that i had taken and ajusted the exposure. Making the image darker to give it a duller effect iillustrated some eyes and placed these in the background. I used the skills to the best of my ability and am proud of what i have created.
Photoshop was a useful application in the making of our project it allowed use to crop and edit out parts of the pictures that we did not need. Also it allowed us to place in other pictures on to seperate layers to help make the poster look authentic. On my poster I inserted the certificate 15 logo by using the magnitic lasoo tool and then inversing my selection. Therefore this alowed me to clear the background using the background eraser tool without damaging any of the certificate. I find photoshop easy to use beacuse of my experiance and am glad i could use my skills to my advantage.
The studio we thought our project would best be created by this was Fox searchlight. We spent time on the internet researching the best studio for us and the mose successful one for the genre. We came up with Fox searchlight as they have created many good horror movies such as 28 Days Later and The Hills Have Eyes these films alone made a gross profit of 86.7 Million dollars. We discovered this on this site
Another application that was very critical to the creation of the project was Final Cut Express. Final cut express was the application we used for the uploading and editing of your the raw footage that we gathered. It is a very complex package that enables you to do many different things however we used the tools and filters that worked well with what we intended our final product to look like. The application allowed us to crop, add and edit almost anything I wanted. We all took turns during the editing stages so we could input things that we though would improve certain parts and discuss whether it worked or not. One of the most useful and also interesting tool on final cut express was the various video filters the video filters. I use these very often on Photoshop and know how they can effect a picture to create a theme and mood. Using this in Final Cut Express i was able to now the different feeling and moods that can come across through the filters. It allows you to transform one shot to another and create interesting viewpoints. The time line is very useful because when adding the sound track it is easy to see it layered over the footage and makes to easy to see where the music fades in from and out and the timing. What made final cut even more useful was the ability it gave us to add music. I uploaded the mp3s for the two non diegetic music tracks we used in our project these were long walk and teddy bears picnic. We decided that this track would definatley create a mixed emotion with the use of contrapuntal sound. Both tracks were copyright free and uploaded from Creative commons websites which we were advised to use. Another advantage with using final cut express was the ability to fade in and out different footage and sounds such as the music at the end of the teaser I put in an fade out audio transition and fade out video filter to introduce the other non diegetic music and final clip.
What I have learned from audience feedback.
The audience feedback that we gained was usefull in finding out if our project was a succes or not it was intresting to hear how different people reacted to the project and what different people thought had made the project good and bad. Here is the interactive questions and the auidience responde.
I am really very please with the feedback that we got. It proved that all the research that we did and the conventions we added did do the jobs they were intended to do. Mainly to make the viewer want to watch more.
By Zoe
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