Monday, 23 April 2012
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Audience Feedback
This is our audience feedback, we asked people who fitted our demographic to watch our trailer and answer some questions about it to see how effective our trailer was.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
This is our poster for our trailer. We chose to insert a christmas lyric because it was relevant to our genre and it adds to the scare factor of our trailer. This is because it implies that our villain is all knowing and has his eye on his victims all the time. We chose to blur the picture because it distorts and twists the view of our Santa character, it also adds to the enigma of the character and could make the audience want to know/see more. We decided to put in poster credits (this is the information at the bottom of the poster about who stars, directs and produces the film. We put this in because it was a convention of posters. We also added a release date, the title and the name of our company because we had looked at previous posters and added them into our poster.
References
http://www.movieposter.com/ - Date accessed: 13/03/2012
http://www.empireonline.com/gallery/list.asp?p=1 - Date Accessed: 23/04/2012
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Magazine Cover
This is our first draft of our Magazine front cover. We chose not to choose this one because we felt that it didn't show the genre of our film well and the image wasn't right for what we wanted to show. We thought that the magazine itself didn't show the genre well because Spiderman and having interviews with actors/actresses that aren't linked to the horror genre took the attention away from our picture and led the attention to famous actors and films.
This is the poster we chose to show our film. We managed to draw the attention mainly to our film and adding other films to do with the horror genre e.g The Woman In Black. Also we added in the title of our film in the same font and style as it is shown in our trailer. This makes our film instantly recognisable as a horror because the red represents blood and the way everything but the red of Santa's suit also adds to this horror feeling. These conventions help the audience recognise the genre of the film and capture their attention.
Reference
http://www.listal.com/list/total-film-magazine-covers - Examples of magazine front covers from Total Film. Date Accessed: 23/04/2012
The Making Of...
We chose Toms house as our setting because we thought that this was the most suitable location for our film because the characters are a family and being in a house shows that they are a family and live together.
We used a large park that we could all get to quickly and easily for the chase and death scenes because there are a lot of large trees and filming it in winter when the trees were bare gave it a christmassy feel and we felt it added to the horror genre. We had to re-film these parts as we thought that the lighting was too bright so we decided to film in a darker area at a darker time of day. We thought that the brighter time of the day didn't keep to the codes and conventions keep to the horror genre so we chose a different day to film it and we chose a day where there was a lot of frost and it was very cold. We found that the lighting gave the better feeling the second time we filmed the scenes.
As well as filming in a park we filmed in a tunnel which Tom scouted as a suitable setting for a killing/chase or a scene to create tension. The tunnel was very dark and slightly lit up so we could create a darker feeling to our trailer. We were able to film quite easily here due to cars not passing by very often and our ability to film from different angles and distances e.g. close up, low angle and medium close up.
Levinia provided us with a scrabble board and fake blood which she had prepared at home. We felt we needed these props to make sure the trailer had high levels of verisimilitude and to follow the codes and conventions of the horror genre. We needed to make sure the blood looked as realistic as possible because without the blood we thought our audience wouldn't associate our trailer with the horror genre.
These are ingredients Levinia used to create the blood and what it looked like when it was on Toms hand during filming. As you can see it looks fairly simple to make and has a good effect. it also looks realistic and worked well when used on set or used on people.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Final Decisions Costume
This is the only costume we will need for our trailer. As you can see it is a stereotypical santa outfit. We will use this outfit because the usual opinion of Santa is that he is friendly character and we plan to subvert that so the killer is a terrible person. We will also subvert the idea that children idolize santa, we will do this by making the children scared of him instead. Due to our characters personality his costume will be juxtaposed to the killers personality yet the red can symbolise blood so it could also be a good match.
References
Myth of Santa - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34525202/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/santa-claus-real-man-behind-myth/ - Date Accessed: 18/01/2012
How Coca - Cola changed Santa - http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html - Date Accessed: 18/01/2012
Final Decisions Props
These are the props we plan to use in our trailer. Most of them are very typical of christmas e.g. the christmas tree and the santa hat. We have decided to use these because we feel that it will convey the idea that our trailer is set around Christmas/late December. The scrabble board and book are also there to show that the characters are kids and that they are still young enough to believe in Santa.
These pictures are juxtaposed because we have the typical objects associated with christmas yet we have a knife and blood which is associated with gore, horror and brutality. These objects are vital to our trailer because without them we will not be able to give the christmassy - horror feeling that we would like to convey to our audience.
Monday, 16 January 2012
Christmas Logo
Below are some ideas for the film logo that Tom created. As a group we had to choose which one we thought was suitable. We liked the font and the red on the letters from the 2nd one but we thought that there needed to be a christmas tree in the background from the first idea.We also like the black and grey colours from the first picture but we aslo wanted the blurred effect in the background to be added in from the third idea so Tom went away and produced our final film log which is the 4th picture down. We feel like this is a suitable logo because it shows that our film is very dark yet we can see the elements of Chistmas.
We found that this was a great idea because it had the red in the text. This is good because it symbolises blood and danger yet it is tightly connected to christmas. We decided against this idea because we thought the swirls looked like eyes and it gave away too much about the danger, this also disabled us from having some sort of enigma.
We also like the idea of the red and the font but we found that the background may confuse people because the green tinsel could have been confused for a branch or something else. A general audience response showed that this wasn't popular because the green tinsel could be misconstrued as a snake/ribbon.
We found that this one gave no clear idea that it was associated with Christmas or it was a horror. The colour in the font and the background do not create any meanings or obviously symbolise something.
We found that this was a great idea because it had the red in the text. This is good because it symbolises blood and danger yet it is tightly connected to christmas. We decided against this idea because we thought the swirls looked like eyes and it gave away too much about the danger, this also disabled us from having some sort of enigma.
We also like the idea of the red and the font but we found that the background may confuse people because the green tinsel could have been confused for a branch or something else. A general audience response showed that this wasn't popular because the green tinsel could be misconstrued as a snake/ribbon.
We found that this one gave no clear idea that it was associated with Christmas or it was a horror. The colour in the font and the background do not create any meanings or obviously symbolise something.
This is our final logo that we came to agree on. We found that the grey and almost white symbolises fog, snow and darkness. It gives a feel that there is a lot of unknown, this implies that the film will be of the horror genre. Also, along with the grey/white the red on the font implies gore/blood/danger and the Christmas tree implies Christmas and happiness because the star is very noticeable.
animatic
This is the final version of our animatic. We have recently re done all of the storyboards for our trailer so we needed to make another animatic, a task we decided we wanted to do. It is very simply edited with them all following on from one another but this time we have left more time for each picture to be shown so the viewer can absorb more information. We have also added in the "Santa clause is coming to town" song played slowly on the keyboard without singing. This is because it is a key element of our film. We felt like this was a better animatic than our previous one because it shows the story line of the film and creates more of an enigma than our previous animatic that we agreed had not been thought through and wasn't as much as a group effort as this one.
References
http://www.storyboards-east.com/animat.htm - Examples of animatics and stroyboards. Date Accessed: 23/04/2012
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Storyboard New
This is the new and final version of the storyboard for our film trailer. We felt that the last one did not follow the conventions of a trailer and didn't build up as much suspense as we would have liked. As a group we sat down and decided to write the script and what images we would show with it, this enabled us being able to picture what we wanted to see and then thinking of images to match what was going on in the script.
1)The first few shots were the same as the old storyboard but we showed them in a lot more detail and made sure we planned every shot alongside the script we have produced.
2)In the second part of our storyboard is where a lot of things changed. We included every shot we wanted because compared to the old storyboard it is very detailed and shows the shots well.
3)We decided in this part of the trailer we wanted to increase tension so we showed shots back and forth between the mother and the brother. We also introduce the killer here but don't show his face or any features to give his identity away.
4)At the end of the trailer we have the title of the film. We felt like this was better compared to the other storyboard where the title was at the beginning. We will flash to the brother at the end saying one final line before ending the trailer.
1)The first few shots were the same as the old storyboard but we showed them in a lot more detail and made sure we planned every shot alongside the script we have produced.
2)In the second part of our storyboard is where a lot of things changed. We included every shot we wanted because compared to the old storyboard it is very detailed and shows the shots well.
3)We decided in this part of the trailer we wanted to increase tension so we showed shots back and forth between the mother and the brother. We also introduce the killer here but don't show his face or any features to give his identity away.
4)At the end of the trailer we have the title of the film. We felt like this was better compared to the other storyboard where the title was at the beginning. We will flash to the brother at the end saying one final line before ending the trailer.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
'Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale' Trailer HD
Over the holidays I have been trying to improve my blog to a grade C but with little luck. To change this I plan to look at example blogs to see how they're structured and presented. I will also look at at the depth of analysis in these blogs to better my own.
As a group we plan to start filming once all our blog work is up to a good standard. We have also been watching a trailer this tightly linked to our film which we can draw new ideas from.
We came to the conclusion that we will portray our Santa character almost like the Santa character from Rare Exports. As you can see from the picture, it is Santa yet in some ways it isn't. The ways in which the character is represented as Santa is the beard and the hair due to it almost being completely white. On the other hand, he looks menacing and has grey/brown parts in his beard. Also, his crooked nose makes him look almost evil and not how Santa should be portrayed. It's as though he just looks like a stereotypical grumpy pensioner.
References
2010 - Rare Exports (Jalmari Helander)
18/01/2012 - http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/
As a group we plan to start filming once all our blog work is up to a good standard. We have also been watching a trailer this tightly linked to our film which we can draw new ideas from.
We came to the conclusion that we will portray our Santa character almost like the Santa character from Rare Exports. As you can see from the picture, it is Santa yet in some ways it isn't. The ways in which the character is represented as Santa is the beard and the hair due to it almost being completely white. On the other hand, he looks menacing and has grey/brown parts in his beard. Also, his crooked nose makes him look almost evil and not how Santa should be portrayed. It's as though he just looks like a stereotypical grumpy pensioner.References
2010 - Rare Exports (Jalmari Helander)
18/01/2012 - http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/
Media Studies - Audience Research Questionnaire Results & Analysis.
Try to include a setting based around the woods or a forest and to include pictures of such in our locating scouting post. We will need to make sure that we choose the right times to take the pictures to add an enigma and boost the scare factor of where we want our trailer to be set.
Focus particularly on music for our horror elements but still making sure that the music creates suspense and an enigma as this would make the soundtrack more effective.
Plan how we can incorporate gore into the trailer without it looking cheap or tacky.
Take into account both the horror movies and Christmas movies that proved most popular with the people we interviewed. We should watch these and take certain elements from them and post what parts we are using for inspiration.
Think about lead roles, female proved most popular so perhaps we need to further develop our current female characters so that they have a more dominant role in the production or maybe include a female lead into the cast (possible heroine)
Think about how we're going to succeed in putting across the thriller sub-genre to our production; an idea for how we could do this is watch some iconic thrillers like The Shining.
Monday, 2 January 2012
interviews
These are our interviews for our trailer. We asked 5 people a few questions of what they would like to see in a horror/christmas trailer.
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