Organisation (response to presentation)

this is my film presentation that i presented to the class before half term. we all did a presentation each and gave feedback on each others ideas and work. on the whole the class was positive and tried to give me as much help as they could. one criticism i received was about my shot list, as they thought that a storyboard would have served a better purpose than a list of my shots and transitions. i believe that the storyboard would help me to get my film idea across to others alot better than a shot list as i understand what i intend to do its the struggle to get the idea across to my peers and teacher through a shot list. i did receive a mixture of positive and negative feedback on my plot from the class as they all appeared to dislike the idea of a group of friends going for a walk in the woods for no reason, i was quite confused to here this as i tend to go for a walk around the country park for no reason. it wasn't until i read the feedback that i agreed with them as they pointed out that in no horror movie the protagonists go out with no reason, some of my peers also gave me ideas of why the friends go for the walk, two of the ideas stood out the most to me. the first idea was that the group went for the walk to investigate a murder and the other idea was that the group went to the superposed "haunted woods" to see if it was really haunted. i like both of the ideas and i will have to decide which idea will go best with my trailer. i also received feedback on my poster idea which will also be the last scene of my trailer. the feedback towards the poster was positive as they thought it would look good but they didn't like the idea of it being the last scene of my trailer. i pointed out that there would be differences between the two but it was pointed out that with most horror movie posters the image is something that isn't shown in the film.

Drafting and Planning (Starting The Trailer)

at the beginning of horror trailers a green screen will be presented and will give the classification of the film, the example on the left is for a 18 rated film and has been labeled with restricted. in trailers this image will be displayed for a minimum of five seconds and following this they will either start the trailer and show the production company logo around 20 seconds into the trailer or they will show the certification                                                                                             screen for five seconds and then show the                                                                                                 production company logo for around two                                                                                                 seconds directly after.

at the start of my trailer i am going to use both certification screen and production company logo within the first 10 seconds of my trailer. looking at other trailers it can take up to eight seconds to show both logos and during this time i have noticed that there will be some small use of sound/music so the audience doesn't get bored or it will be silent for the eight seconds. i have now come to realization that i have a eight second window at the start of my trailer that i can use to expand on my story.
Because my trailer is about a group of friends who get lost i wanted to expand on the social aspect of the group by possibly using a phone conversation between two of the friends. This phone conversation will consist of a mobile phone ringing for around three seconds and then one sentence. the sentence will be "are you coming on this walk then" (the person who says this will be the one who phoned and the person who answered the phone wont say anything). all of this will be happening as the certification and the production company signs are being shown. i believe that this is a efficient way of using the eight second time gap i have at the start of the trailer as i would rather have something small that expands a tiny bit of the plot than using music to fill the eight seconds so the audience doesn't get bored.

Research into similar products

i have recently started to look at other slasher films of my genre such as films by the late Wes Craven. i looked at the Scream 4 trailer and it has shown me alot about making Slasher trailers. for starters the way they structure the dialog. what i mean by this is how they talk about the killer 30 seconds into the trailer as if he is just a game as the male is talking about how there are rules but the kills have to be much more extreme which is suggesting that the killer needs rules on how he can kill. looking at the trailer it is also easy to see that it is a dialog driven trailer which in my opinion is just lazy film making and not my ideal trailer as in trailers i prefer to make the audience put the plot together in their head instead of having one of my characters describe it to them which will just make the audience bored and not interested in the film. so i would rather prefer to make my trailer pop out with dynamic shots and fast/exciting editing.

another thing i picked out from the trailer was the way they show the movement of the killer. what i mean by this is when he goes to strike his victim with the blade they cut when the blade is around a foot away from the victim. and that the 3 seconds we see the killer it is 4 different shots fastly edited together. i like this as it adds suspense to the scene and by not showing the blade hitting the victim it doesn't spoil the story as we still don't know weather she is alive or dead.

Organisation

as half term is approaching it will be the perfect time to go out to my chosen location and map out exactly where i will shoot each scene of my trailer.
i already have the location of my opening shot where my characters will walk over a small bridge whilst chatting (This dialog between characters will have no defined plot purpose but to be used to make the scene look busier). due to my location being in an awkward place i might have to film other parts of the trailer in a different location such as Lickey Hills park or the Waseley hills in rubery the only problem with filming in two different locations is that it might create continuity errors because the weather may be different.
the week off for half term will also be perfect time to gather my props which shouldn't be hard as i only really need the axe as it is the defining prop of my trailer as all horror villain have their tools as Jason had his Machete, Freddy had his glove, Leather face has his chainsaw and my villain has his axe.
 i will also be testing how fake blood looks through cameras as i don't want to get reflections showing up in shots as it will make my scenes look amateurish especially for my films poster as i need to capture blood dripping from the blade of the axe and if the fake blood doesn't have the perfect consistency it wont drip from the blade it will just pour off it.

Similar Products (ancillary products: Posters)

from what i can see most movie posters center around one thing this will usually be a character or a murder weapon of some sort. usually with horror movies the poster will center around the murder weapon. i intend to do the same thing with my ancillary product as i want to center my poster around the image of the axe that will be carried by my movies antagonist. because an axe on its own will look boring im going to have the background of my poster be one of my protagonists sitting with there back towards a tree. to make my poster look dynamic im going to blur everything in the shot other than the low angle of the axe, this will ensure that my poster will be centered around the axe itself. the text on the poster is a huge part of the poster itself as without the text you wouldn't know what it would be advertising. looking at other slasher posters it is clear that most of them title the film in a big red font. im going to follow the red font convention as it will go well with the dark blurred background.

Similar Products: I Spit On Your Grave

this is the trailer for the 2010 remake of the classic horror film I Spit On Your Grave. this film is of the same genre as my trailer as it too is a slasher horror movie. however this trailer/movie takes a very different approach to the slasher genre and how it portrays the Protagonists. An example of this is the way they first portray the protagonist (The Female) as they portray her as a week young girl who is the victim of a horrible experience which is the normal way to portray the protagonists in a slasher but they turn the representation of the girl around as she then becomes more of an Antagonist than a Protagonist as she goes out of her way to kill the people who hurt her.
This is an interesting trailer to study as it is closely similar to my trailer but takes a alternative route to the way the protagonist acts.

if we compare the two images on the left we see the transition how the character develops through the trailer as with the first image she is seen as small, insignificant and scared because someone has broken into her house and then the second image which is how she is shown to be after the experience and she is a completely different person as she is shown to be near monstrous which shows how she developed from the scared protagonist to the angry antagonist  

Organisation (Casting)

I have a solid idea of the way my characters will look in my trailer. As my film is a horror im not really having to rely on the character development as they will more than likely be killed by the antagonist. For my trailer i will need to have at least 6 people to be in my trailer. 5 of these people will be acting as the lost walkers in the forest and the sixth person will be playing the antagonist.
Antagonist: the antagonist in my trailer will be unseen but i still need a tall male to play the role. i have decided to play the antagonist myself as my face wont be seen by the camera and i am the right height for the role (6ft 2)
Protagonists: the protagonists can be played by anyone really as all i need is two girls and three boys for the walkers that are going to be playing people in their late teens which all of my friends are so i shouldn't struggle to find people to be in my trailer. i want to use people in their late teens because my trailer is a slasher which usually in-tales teens being brutally murdered (examples: Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday The 13th etc.)

Reaserch into similar products (Dialog in trailers)

in trailers one of the ways you attract the audience is the dialog. alot of trailers in horror contain quite alot of dialog such as the trailers at the bottom of the post. because i am not very confident in the quality of the micraphones in the video cameras we will be using i have decided that my trailer wont be dialog driven. becasue i wont be using dialog to explain the plot i will have to use visual storytelling to make the viewer put the plot together in their head. luckily i have chosen to make a slasher trailer so the plot isnt too complicated as a group of friends get lost on a walk and are hunted by a axe weilding maniac. because my plot is quite simple it will be easy to show the plot through the small pecies of dialog that i will use and the fact that there will be afew hints to what is happening by the close ups of the axe.
the trailer below is for the 2012 horror movie Sinister. throughout the trailer they use dialog to tell the audience the plot such as the voice saying that there was a killing in the house and then the voice of the little girl complaining about that she had to move house. this dialog is used so the audience can get the grasp of what the film is going to be about. the trailer uses an equal amount of visual storytelling as it does dialog storytelling as the dialog explains the start of the story and then the visual comes into play when the farther starts to watch the videos which expands on the plot as it shows that the demon has been killing through the images.

Target Audience

for my trailer i will need to set a target audience so i know what i need to include in the trailer to get the attention of my selected audience. looking into the horror genre it is easily seen that the age certificate for near to all horror movies is 18 examples of this is A Nightmare On Elm Street 18, Friday The 13th 18, Scream 18, Disturbia 18 and i could go on. this is a clear indication that my audience is going to be people aged over the age of 18. according to the BBFC to make a film the 18 certificate it must have a variety of things included in the film such as very strong violence, frequent strong language (e.g Fu*k), strong portrayals of sexual activity, scenes of sexual violence, strong horror, strong blood and gore and discriminatory language and behavior. for obvious reasons i wont include all of these things in my trailer but i will have to make sure my trailer looks horrific enough to make it look like an 18 certificate to get the attention of my audience.

to the left there is the banner that is included in trailers to indicate that the film has been approved by the company that made it to be viewed by their audience and in this situation there audience is referred to as R which means restricted. this is the age rating that has been given to the film and it means that it isn't suitable for anyone under the age of 18. this is a good place to start my trailer as it will indicate the
                                                                                    nature of the trailer.

The trailer below is of a film that is rated 18. looking at the trailer it is easy to see why the film is rated an 18 as it shows torture, death of both adults and children and alot of gore. i will have to take a similar approach when i make my trailer as i want to make it easy for my audience to see that my film is a 18. because my film is going to be a slasher film i will have to show the rating by using alot of fake blood to show that there is strong violence.

Organisation (location of my trailer)

for the location of my horror trailer i have decided to film in a wood/forest. i have chosen a forest as it already holds a sense of fear as no one wants to be lost in the woods at night. there are plenty of woods/forests in Birmingham that i could choose from but i have chosen to film in Uffmoor woods in halseowen. Uffmoor is 209 acres of walking paths and dense trees. this is going to be the perfect location for my trailer as there are plenty of open areas to film in.

the picture on the left is about a six minuet walk into the woods and the perfect place for my opening shot. it is the ideal shot as there is a rise in the ground to give me the perfect spot to film from a high angle and the tree line above the bridge isnt too thick to block the light which means the shot wont be too dark.
because the woods is mainly paths to film the scenes where the group gets lost and took off the path i will have to leave the path and go into the thickness of the trees. filming in the tree line might be abit difficult for lighting reasons but there wont be any people walking off the paths so i wont be distrubed or have people                                                                                  walking there dogs caught in the background of my                                                                                shots.