First Poster Draft

The Horror movies The Ring  and The Grudge both have similar themes to our movie. They both feature a female antagonist of supernatural origins. I decided to follow a similar layout to both The Ring and The Grudge by having the female antagonists as the key image in the poster. I also decided to use a red text with a font that was similar to blood to represent the danger and death associated with a horror movie. I decided to use a black and white photo to represent the air of mystery within the movie as the lack of color makes the ghost seem more mysterious. I think the black background also adds to the dark depressing atmosphere the trailer produces. We have yet to come up with a definite title so for the first draft of this poster there is no title just yet. As this is the first draft there are a lot of things I intend to improve on such as the quality of the picture and rearrange the layout. I will also need to add the text that mentions things such as the director, producers and the corporations involved. One problem I found was that the size of the poster was too large to upload directly to this site, so next time I will use  the dimensions of a smaller poster.

Movie poster analysis and DVD cover analysis

Movie poster analysis from OndreTheGiant

Dvd cover analysis from OndreTheGiant

Reasons for rethinking our synopsis

 We ran into a few issues while filming, the first and foremost being that the forest was much darker than we expected it to be, due to this we did not have the proper lighting equipment meaning that the actors and the scene itself were not seen on camera. Another issue was that we wanted to capture the natural ambient sounds of the forest, but the sound equipment we used was not sensitive enough. A third issue we had was that the weather was not in our favor, the temperature was far to cold to film outdoors for prolonged amounts of time. A combination of these technical and natural issues lead to us rethinking our trailer idea and thus lead to us creating a new synopsis which can be seen below.

Scenes and location

The location we used was the house and back garden of one of our group members. This was a good location as the garden was large and had an accessible area behind it that looked like a forest and it had a large amount of space to film. This suited our purpose as our story involved a group group of friends going into a forest for a weekend of camping. The isolation of being in a dark and dangerous place alone fits well within the conventions of horror.

The house was also suitable as the front of it looked dilapidated and old. This also fits in with the story as the group of friends find an old abandoned house and go to it to seek shelter. It is typical convention within a horror movie to have an abandoned house. This could be because the mystery that that surrounds a old and abandoned house fits well with the genre of horror.

Props used within our trailer.

We used various props within our trailer such as; Halloween make up,chewing gum as fake wounds large work boots and fake blood. We were fortunate that the time period that we started filming was also halloween so shops were selling things like fake blood and halloween make up which they would not sell normally and they were also being sold at a cheaper price than usual. These props helped add to the mise en scene of the trailer and they could also signify things. For example blood could represent death,danger or injury. One of our ideas was to have a close up of the large work boots of the killer as he quietly stalks his victims, the large boots signified a large destructive force heading towards the victims and the fact that we didn't show his face would have made the killer mysterious which is a common convention in horror movies.

Synopsis

This video is the synopsis of our movie.

The Proposal

Proposal
Project Name:	Trailer Of A Horror Film		Date:		11/12/2012
Student Names:	Joanna Czurlowska, Jhully Marangoni, Ondre Brooks
Contact Details:	Crest Sixth Form College Crest Road, London NW2 7SN
Title of work:	The Sacrifice
Type of product:	The product we have decided to produce is a horror trailer called 'The Sacrifice'. The product will be created to promote the film and let the audience know what it is about, as well as trying to entice them to watch the movie.
Legal and ethical constraints:	The trailer which we will be producing will be aimed at people above the age of 15 although this is still a group below 18 therefore there should be nothing that is not appropriate for this age group; no acts of sex, taking drugs, excessive violence/gore or swearing will be included.
Audience:	We want the trailer to appeal to those who are fans of horror movies as this would be our target audience. We also want to appeal to those aged 15-26 as they are the main age groupings for horror movies. We want the audience to become curious about the movie due to the enigmas left by the trailer as this would help persuade them to watch the film.
Content:	The trailer would contain short clips from the movie complied into a trailer. This would also include non digetic music that helps set the tone and the pace of the trailer. The clips in the trailer would be arranged in an order that would give the audience a brief over view of what the movie was about without giving away all of the plot. The trailer would also contain information such as release dates, actors and institutions involved in the production of the movie. The trailer will also include conventions from the horror genre so that the audience are aware of the genre of the movie

A History of Horror

The first appearance of supernatural events in movies were done in the late 1890s in silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès. The most well know of these being Le Manoir du diable (The Manor of the Devil) which is often called the first horror movie. The second monster to appear in a horror movie was Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame who appeared in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris. The first vampire themed movie was Nosferatu by F. W. Murnau (1922). During the early periods of talking movies Universal Pictures began a series of Gothic horror film series which was successful which included Tod Browning's Dracula(1931) and was quickly followed by James Whale's Frankenstein(1931).
As technology improved the tone of the movies shifted from Gothic towards contemporary concerns and the subgenres horror-of-armageddon and horror-of-demonic. There were also many productions that featured humans overcoming threats from "outside" such as alien invasions and mutations in people animals and plants.
An example of this would be the Godzilla movies from Japan in which nuclear radiation causes mutation.
Hollywood producers also used gimmicks such as 3d and pseudo-electric-shocks a technique used in The Tingler a 1959 movie.
After the end of the production code of america and due to the financial success of low budget gore horrors more movies with occult themes being released such as the Exorcist.
"Evil children" and reincarnation also became popular themes, an example of this would be Robert Wise's film Audrey Rose (1977) in which a father believes his daughter is a reincarnation of another dead person.
In the 80s there was a sudden was of Gory B movies that became cult classics.


The 1990's saw sequels to slasher films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Child's Play.

The Ring Trailer

I decided that as we are creating a trailer it would be good to look at other trailers, we intend for our trailer to be a horror so I would be appropriate to look at a trailer of a similar genre.

This is the trailer for the 2002 movie "The Ring". This movie is classed as a psychological horror, a psychological horror is a horror movie that uses the fear the characters experiences and their emotional insecurities to build tension within the movie. The trailer focuses more on the mental and emotional side of fear rather than having bits which make the audience jump. An example of this would be when the female protagonist receives a call and a whispered voice say "7 days". This doesn't scare the audience in the fact that it makes them jump, but the trailer informs the audience that 7 days after watching the video the person dies, this means the audience know what is going to happen and that the protagonist is working on a time limit and this helps build tension.

The trailer follows several codes and conventions that allow the audience to identify the genre as horror. One of these is the use of dark colours such as greys and dark blues. The trailers lighting is very low key which works well with the dark colours to create a dark and eerie atmosphere. The trailer also uses non digetic sounds to add to the suspense as it uses very slow music that involves string instruments such as violins and a piano playing high notes. The trailers sound track later speeds up but still makes use of String instruments such as violins to build tension. As the pace of the music increases so does the trailers editing, the trailer makes use of sharp quick cuts that increase in speed as the music increases.

The variation in the ring is that women have a lot of power in the movie. For example the main protagonist is a woman and the antagonist is also female (the ghost of the girl). This is a variation that we may apply in our trailer with the main antagonist being a female.

The ring was an American remake of the Japanese horror movie Ringu and when on to inspire other American remakes of Japanese movies such as The Grudge and Dark Water.

The ring had a budget of $48 million this is relatively high compared to movies of a similar genre for example Paranormal activity had a budget of only $15 000. Unfortunately this is not something we can compete with and because of this our quality will not be of a standard similar to that of the ring.

Our movie follows Todorov's narrative theory of equilibrium. The story starts with the characters being safe and having fun(Equilibrium). They then start being troubled by the ghostly antagonist (Disequilibrium). The protagonists then struggle to escape with their lives and return home safe (New equilibrium) 

Movie Pitch

movie pitch on Prezi

This was our groups movie pitch.

Horror Mood board

I created a mood board for the genre we decided to use. Which was horror.
I thought about horror movies and put all the things that came mind on my mood board.

Conventions expected within a trailer

The release date: The date that the film is expected to be shown in cinemas. This is vital because if the audience doesn't know when the film is released how can they go to watch it? The date could be specific and give the day, the month and the year of release (E.G 20.12.13). It could also just be the season of release and the year.(E.G summer 2013)

Genre: What type of of movie is it? I.e Horror,action etc... These can be identified by symbolism's within the trailer for example lots of red colours and slow music could mean the movie is a romance movie.

Cast: This can persuade the audience to see the movie especially if the actors mentioned are skilled.

Plot: Not a lot is revealed but it is usually is enough to give the audience a rough idea of what the movie is about. However this may not be the case for a teaser trailer.

Selling point: This is essential to attracting audiences.

Target audience research

In our group the genre we decided to choose was horror and thus we had to look at what was the main target audience of horror movies.
The main ages of people who watch horror tend to be aged between 15-24. The target gender is both male and female but the movies tend to draw in more males as they can interact with the characters more. While females tend to interact differently. Another target audience would be dating couples who are very close.

Trailer analysis of avengers

The Avengers Trailer essay

The purpose of a film trailer is to advertise a movie, attract an audience, build anticipation for the movie, informs the audience of things such as: release dates, dedicated websites and social media. The trailer also raises enigmas and may give little clues to the audience about the movie. It also tries to bring more audiences into the cinemas.

Things that make up a trailer are: Music, multiple clips taken from the film, release dates for the movie, names of companies involved, introduction of the characters who will be appearing in the movie. It may also introduce the director of the movie and mention his previous works.

The Avengers movie is an action, adventure and sci-fi movie. We can tell its action adventure because of the fast pace the trailer sets with the explosions and fight scenes. The rock music that plays also helps define the genre, as the music is aggressive and fast paced which matches the action adventure genre. We can tell that the movie is sci-fi because we can see fictional technology such as Iron Man’s suit.

The style is similar to a typical superhero comic as it contains people dressed in costumes saving the world. It also has a lot of action scenes in it, which matches the superhero style as it tends to be action paced and full of explosions.

I think the main target audience of this film are people who enjoy fast paced action movies. The movie may be more specifically aimed at people who enjoy reading superhero comics made by companies such as Marvel comics or Detective Comics, but more likely readers of Marvel comics as the Avengers are from the Marvel universe. The movie may also be aimed at people who have seen the movies that focused on the characters individually such as: Thor, Iron Man 1 and 2, The Hulk and Captain America as all these movies were made to run up to the Avengers movie meaning that a lot of anticipation was built.

The film trailer attempts to interest the audience by using action packed scenes that included things like explosions. The enigmas raised also interest the audience, as they may be willing to see the movie to answer their questions.

There is an atmosphere of impending doom created as at the beginning of the trailer we hear an unknown villain threatening the human race and he is shown in a dark light that signifies his evil intent. The explosions in the trailer also create a dangerous atmosphere because the characters are under attack in a life or death situation. In the trailer we also see soldiers and police officers moving about or shooting at things which also give the atmosphere of a war zone. 

The trailer uses several clips from the movie such as: action shots from above, close ups of characters faces, the use of dark lighting which could imply that a certain character has evil intentions. The trailer also shows the characters in costume which comes under mise-en-scene. The trailer uses diegetic sounds in a non-diegetic way, such as when sound clips of the characters talking in the movie which would have been diegetic were used as voiceovers in the trailer to give the audience a rough idea of what the movie is about. The sound track for the trailer also featured a song that had the lyrics "were in this together now" which suits the plot of the film as it was about people teaming up to take on an enemy. Props were used for things such as weapons or were involved in things like special effects such as when explosions occurred and cars were flipped and debris scattered.  

The trailer is indeed conventional as it includes things like: multiple clips taken from the film, release dates for the movie, names of companies involved and introduction of the characters that will be appearing in the movie. As it is a trailer for an action movie it also has conventions unique to action movie trailers like fast paced music, past paced scene transitions, the inclusion of explosions and scenes that involve combat.

The trailer uses dialogue from the movie to play the part of a voice over. The first line we hear is "you were made to be ruled" this may raise enigmas as it could cause the audience to wonder who said this and why they said this. It could also add to the anticipation as the words create a sense of impending doom and the audience could be eager to see what happens next. The final dialogue within the trailer features Tony Stark and Bruce Banner talking to one another and Tony Stark makes a joke, this could have been done to show the audience that the movie does also have some comedy in it which may cause it to appeal to an even larger audience. The tone of the voice-over varies throughout the trailer, the word spoken at the start of the trailer are said slow and deliberately which cause them take on a threatening manner. The dialogue spoken by Nick Fury in the movie is said at a moderate pace and is easy for the audience to understand which makes it ideal for the trailer as it allows people to follow the rough plot of the story.

Budget

$220,000,000 (estimated)

Gross

$4,100,000 (UK)

$598,425,442 (USA) (24 June 2012)      

$1,370,807,000 (Worldwide) (9 June 2012) 

Age rating

UK and Ireland 12A

USA PG-13

Analysis of Les Miserables

Les Miserables

The purpose of a film trailer is to advertise a movie, attract an audience, build anticipation for the movie, informs the audience of things such as: release dates, dedicated websites and social media. The trailer also raises enigmas and may give little clues to the audience about the movie. It also tries to bring more audiences into the cinemas. The trailer can also be used to inform audiences of who will be acting in the movie as well as the director and producers of the movie and their previous works.

Things that make up a trailer are: Music, multiple clips taken from the film, release dates for the movie, names of companies involved in the production of the movie and in some cases text onscreen which can add to the narrative.

Les Miserables seems as if it might be a musical drama. The reason I say this is because the song that is played during the trailer seems to non-diegetic but there is an instance in which is syncs with a clip in the trailer which could imply that the song was part of the movie. There was also a clip from the trailer which showed several women bursting out of a building in synchronization which could imply that the clip was part of a dance routine that would commonly be found in a musical. The most obvious implication that the movie is a musical is that it is the movie rendition of a Broadway musical. The reason I say it is drama is because during the trailer we see many different facial expressions that display many different emotions but many of them look sad rather than happy.

The style of the clothing looked historical and by the costumes some of the men who were in the army wore I would say it was set in France at some point during the civil war. The buildings help support this point as they seem to be made mostly from wood which is very different from any modern city in present times. There is also a lack of vehicles and people seem to be using horses and carriages as the main form of transport.

I think that the main target audience of this film are people who have seen the musical live, however it could also be aimed at people who would like to have seen the musical but found it too difficult and or expensive to travel to a venue that staged the musical and buy the tickets as movie tickets can be considerably cheaper compared to theater tickets. It would also be aimed at people who read the novel as well as they may want to see a visualization of it.   

The trailer attempts to interest the audience in several ways. One way in which they do this is by mentioning the names of the well known actors who will be appearing in the movie as the audience may be more willing to see the movie if they know skill actors are going to be appearing in it. The trailer also mentions the director and producer of the movie and their previous works as this may cause the audience to be more willing to see the movie if they are familiar with the director/producer and their previous works, especially if they were well received. The trailer also raises enigmas such as what was the dream that is sung about and what did the text at the end mean when it said that the dream lives on?

The trailer shows a lot of soldiers in uniform which creates the atmosphere of war. There are also a lot of sad facial expressions shown within the trailer which may cause you to think that the environment they're in is a depressing one.

The trailer uses many different shots from the movie and has things like close ups on characters or long shots on things such as buildings and places. The music played in the trailer is non-diegetic but there is a point within the trailer where the clip and the song synchronize this could imply that the song is a diegetic sound within the movie but it is used as a non-diegetic sound in the trailer, however the orchestra that play while the song is being sung is non-diegetic. The costumes worn by the characters are designed to match what would be worn in civil war France and this would come under mise-en-scene. The horses and carriages could be considered as props and extras within them movie.

The trailer is indeed conventional as it includes things like: multiple clips taken from the film, an approximate release date for the movie, the names of directors/producers involved and their previous works and it also introduces some of the actors who will be appearing in the film.

The song used in the trailer is about a person's dream, this could have been used because the movie is about someone who wishes or tries for their dreams to come true. The song could also be used to set the atmosphere in the play as the song sound like a depressing one and it could imply that the movie will be a sad depressing movie or that the characters will suffer through sad a depressing events .Some of the last lyrics in the song are "life has killed the dream" this could imply that the movie is about shattered dreams that don't come true.