Evaluation Questions Draft 1

Question 1

Conventions of horror trailers:

Colour
– Colour is an important tool for creating a good trailer. Makes dark scenes and dark colours are used all the way through the trailer this is supposed to be obscure the audience’s view on what is actually happening which then creates a sense of fear because they have no idea what is coming next.

Diverse camera angles
– Wide range are used in horror trailers. This techniques gives the idea the audience the illusion that this is real life. Horrors are made up or come from real stories, in order to let the audience believe in what are seeing is real camera shots from different angles attract the audience in.

Voice over
- The voice over`s are normally heard through the first of the horror trailer which gives the audience an idea of what the film is about.

Speed editing & Music
- In general trailers allow start with a long shots and less camera movements. Music is played through a horror trailer. At the beginning of the horror trailer is

   Sting
- The sting is usually the final couples of shot in the horror trailer which are shown just after the film title has been shown. This sting is like the final surprise in order to scare the audience which then prepares them for the film.

Character introduction
- This is one of the most important features of a film trailer. This is important as an audience gets pleasure from film`s by already knowing some of the characters.

   Genre specific iconography
- Camera shots or angle, sound, images as well as objects help creates features of a specific sub-genre. For example in Supernatural there would be spirits, night vision. dark scenes etc.

Depth field

-          Depth of field are normally used in horror trailers as it makes it difficult to see what`s creeping up behind the leading role

·         Hand- held shots

-          Hand-held is also a technique that could be used as it gives feeling of terror and the unknown because it makes it difficult for the audience to see what is going on. Furthermore it makes them feel part of the trailer.

·         Point of view Shot

-          Point of view could be used in order to show the audience the villains or any other characters point of view

·         Extreme-close-up

-          On here the audience is able to identify the characters fear if they are not able to, it makes the scene more terrifying

·         Camera Work

-          For camera work slow paced editing is used which build tension as the audience do not know what is going to happen next. For example a someone smiling may jump out in order to scare you

-          Fast editing is also used as it create tension

·         Diegetic sound

-          For diegetic sound ambient sound is used like breathing for example which is a great way to create tension and increase the climax in a horror trailer

·         Non-diegetic

-          This technique is also used to create sounds like sound of heart beat which is what one of the main sound that is used in a horror trailer. This also makes the more intense as the heart beat is getting louder and faster.

·         Long shot

-          This shot is normally used in horror trailer as it helps to express a sense of weaknesses of the victim

·         High/Low Angle

-          This helps demonstrate status and power

·         Lighting

-          The lighting in a horror trailer creates fear as the audience is hardly able to see anything.

·         Jump cut

-          This techniques helps quickens time in a horror trailer

·         Ambient Sound

n                  - This is usually realism so for example twigs, whistling noises or the sound of real blowing wind. 

What conventions we used:

Colour – we used colour as a major tool in order to make the scenes look dark and mysterious. This gave something spooky to our trailer

Voice over – even though voice over`s are usually used at the beginning of a trailer we decided to use voice over mostly to create the voices in Elton’s head which is around the middle bit of our trailer. This made the trailer even more realistic as this is one of the aspects that schizophrenic people

Speed editing – we used some long shots at the beginning to give an idea of the plot. Faster shots we used at the end in order to increase tension throughout the audience

Character introduction – we did not do character introduction as we thought that it was not necessary needed. This is because normally an audience would gets its pleasure from watching a film with characters that they already known and like but since are characters are nor well known and have never acted in any other film`s with though that there was no point in putting there names in the trailer.

  Diverse camera angles – we obviously thought that using a wide range of angles would make the scenes look a bit more realistic.  Our trailer is from real life in away as these things can happen in real life because of the person’s mind. Using different angles made the audience believe that what they are seeing is real and we thought that these angles would attract our target audience more.

Jump cut - we used jump cuts in some parts of our trailer because it gives a sense of insecurity to the audience as there are not able to see the images properly because there are going to fast.



Conventions of a horror poster:

The layout of the poster is pretty simple. Everything is in the correct place in order to give a clear visual to the individuals that are looking at the poster. The title of the movie is in the bigger font as it is the most important title and this was also done in order to catch the audiences eyes and to get them interested into the film.

The shot type used is a mid-shot. The gives great details such as, the audience is able to see the fear on the characters faces which could make them interested into the film even more. In addition to this due to the image being a mid-shot it makes the mirror bigger which could indicate that this object played a valuable role into the film. Furthermore that fact that they used a dark picture as the background make the writing on it more visual which is good for catching an individual eye.

In terms of framing, the way the poster was put together the poster is simplistic. The writing was placed either at the bottom or the top of the poster which kept the faces of the characters on there clear. If there was writing on the everywhere on the poster it would have looked messy and the audience would have not been able to have a clear visual of the main background.

What I learnt

From the research that I got I learnt the different types of aspects that a horror poster might have in order to attract an audience. So when my producing my own poster I tried to add as many conventions as I could. Here is my final poster however this might change:

Question 3

Comments:

·         We need to make more research on how we are going to be marketing our trailer. As our target audience is from the age of 18-25 we need to research how they find their trailer and our storyboards it might be hard to represent someone that has schizophrenia so we need to think about the different elements that we are going to have to put there in order to give our target audience an idea of what the story is about.

The comment below I believe is the one that helped us the most in terms of producing and editing. This is because our focus audience were able to tell us what they expected in a horror trailer which made it easier for us to know what to put in there and how the tempo of the trailer should be.

·         Due to our focus group we found out that our target audience liked our trailer idea which reflected positively on how planning method. They also gave us different idea on how to improve our storyline so for example they thought that we don't have to go in much details about why there is a clown as it’s just a trailer but we do not to make the audience understand why the clown is there so it need to make sense. In addition to this they thought that the twisted bit where the clown end up being the main character that has schizophrenia which is a good as we didn't know if the twist would work and if our target audience would like it. They also thought that our trailer need to be gory, quiet jumpy and slow pace to create tension and to make it more interesting. They also gave us ideas on the types of locations we could use for our trailer so a forest or woods. Elton also brought up a good idea which was that the person with schizophrenia should paint numbers everywhere around them as this is one of the characteristics of the mental disease. People with this mental issue normally see numbers around them and name everything with number. This could be a good idea in order to make our trailer as realistic as possible. Furthermore they told us that our trailer should have a good finally and that our trailer need to make them curious about what is going to be happening later in the movie. Some good ideas were given to us and them really helpful as now we have a clear idea to what our target audience is looking for in our trailer.

Question 4

Blogger

-          One of the benefits of using blogger is that it is easy to use. Using Blogger is extremely easy to use as everything is arranged so that user may be comfortable to use.

-          One disadvantage is that every single picture that you want to put on there has to be changed into a PDF which can be frustrated sometimes.

Prezi

-          It is a great way of presentation work which can be an advantage for the audience as there are able to see your ideas clearly.

-          Prezi can have motion sickness. There has been some problems about Prezi making people feel dizzy if they use it for too long.

   Apple Macs

-          Apple Macs have great applications that some other computers have for example: Final Cut Pro which is used to make movies and arranged some filming’s that you did.

-          The problem with using a Mac is that it can be very expensive and it can also be complicated to use. One over thing is that it does not accept all sort of technologies

 Mobile Phones
Digital Cameras
            - An disadvantage of using a digital camera is that if the memory card is corrupted then this can lead to photos or filming being lost. This can be a problem in terms of production as all of the work that has been done could be lost.