Film Poster and Magazine First Draft

First Draft Of Realm Magazine

First Draft Of D.O.B Poster

Planning-Applying Theories to D.O.B

Levi Strauss 

Levi Strauss created a theory that all narratives incorporate 'binary opposites' An example of this could be love and hate in a romantic comedy or bad and evil in a thriller film.

In my film we have used the binary opposites of good and evil. Firstly we have used 4 teenage characters who all have stereotypical appearances which connote the innocence of youth, essentially the pinnacle for representing good. However we have also incorporated evil into our film as we have a ghost who is haunting and trying to kill these 4 characters, the conflict between these binary opposites can be seen in our intertitles "They must fight back". The low angle shot of India being hung also shows the extent of evil that the ghost represents, directly contrasted by a long shot of Sean running away showing how he is innocent and providing the binary opposite of good.

The film actually also incorporates another set of binary opposites in character personalities. We have the female character we look to fight back against the supernatural haunting, seen in the final shot of Hayley saying "how do we stop this?" The binary opposition to this is found in the attitude of the males in the film who decide they are better to run from the troubles to try and escape the haunting. As the film progresses these binary opposites become more clear and greatly contribute towards the films narrative.

Stuart Hall's Readings

When looking at stuart Hall's theory of how audiences receive media, we are looking to get a preferred reading of a viewer that would experience elements of intense fear and understand that there is a potential for danger for everyone. Our target audience is wide, although when looking into it further we are likely to get a preferred reading for teenagers aged 16-19 as they are the closest to the age of the characters we are representing in the film.

A negotiated/oppositional reading would be a consumer who is not as fearful of our film and doesn't experience the same level of fear that we are trying to create. This would lose the element of horror from our film therefore not conform to the conventions of the genre we are looking to achieve. A negotiated reading therefore would understand the plot line and what narrative we are conveying, without experiencing the same level of fear as preferred reading would. Whereas a oppositional reading would not follow the plot-line and may not even experience any heightened fear.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Personal identity is offered to the audience in our thriller trailer as we are targeting a similar target audience to our characters. Our characters are all seen in school and as we are targeting an age group which are likely to still be in education they can relate to the characters social position. Further to this our use of familiar settings such as school and a house allow the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the characters. Our film also offers personal relationships for the audience as many people like to watch horror films with other people rather than alone. Therefore our audience is likely to use the film as a social way of watching a film with others. Personally I know this is the case as I have been to watch other horror films such as Oujia myself with my friends.

Planning-Film Magazine Ideas

-Main picture:
I have decided to take a photo of Hayley one of our main characters, (which I am using her also for my film poster to create synergy) the image will be a high angle shot looking down on her from above, with her looking scared into the camera and holding out her hand. This is an image which will tell a story rather than a simple image of a character, an element I found effective in my research. I found a similar technique on an Empire magazine as spiderman's hand is further forward than his body and it creates an attention catching image which looks almost 3 dimensional.

-Name of magazine (masthead):
I decided to use go for "realm" as I thought about the names of successful film magazines and obviously Empire is one of the most famous ones. I wanted to use a short snappy name similar to Empire as I felt this work so well for them, so I looked at words related to empire and came up with the masthead "realm". It has the same connotations as empire and connotes a strong powerful establishment which is what a film magazine should want to represent. This is the power that a small low budget magazine needs when competing with well known conglomerates.

-Additional photos:
I decided it would be important to also incorporate other photos onto my magazine as it will represent more than just our own film. I therefore decided I would include an action shot from our film and have it as "An interview with Sean Kaitano". This incorperates the use of star power as it has emphasis on him as an actor and will also use photo manipulation.

-Colour scheme:
I have decided to go for a black background and then use a bold orange colour from the backing on my texts. This will use the contrast between the colours to grasp the audiences attention and is an element I saw in my research of The Black Knight Rises.

-Film Strip:
My film strip will conform to typical magazine conventions and will be placed at the bottom of my magazine showing other films that will feature in the magazine. I felt it would be important to show other genres as we don't want a solely thriller based magazine as we are targeting a mass audience. Therefore I am also including the titles of 2 teen angst films in my film strip.

-Barcode and Price:
I feel it will be important to incorporate a bar code onto the front cover of my film magazine as it is something that features on the front of all magazines. However I am not going to conform to the stereotypical convention of having a price on the front cover. This is because I feel I will need to start with a lower price to compete with the large companies like Empire and I do not want to devalue the way that the magazine appears due to having a low price.

Planning-Film Poster Inital Ideas

Day 1: I have now started to make my movie poster which will compliment my movie trailer. Today I worked on finding an image that I will use as the focus for my film poster. I decided to do this because when researching I found that the majority of the film posters use a bold image in the background and then base the poster around this. I felt that their had to be clear horror mise-en-scene in the image that I found from our trailer if it was to convey the narrative of our film. However after spending the lesson looking through our footage to find a still it proved difficult to find a clear image that would also reflect the narrative of our trailer, rather than simply just showing a still close up shot of one of our characters. Therefore it was clear to me that I had to rethink my approach.

Style of poster I am looking at

Day 2: After going away and researching further about what type of shot I could use that would convey narrative as well as showing a character from the film I decided on my film poster idea. As the narrative of our film is heavily focused on our main characters trying to escape a ghost which is haunting them I felt it would be important to include this in my film poster as it would incorporate the narrative of the film. Therefore I decided that a photo of one of our main characters up against a wall with their hand over their mouth would show how they are both scared and the wall would reflect how they are scared. I decided I could then take a photo of our ghost character and also blend this into the image on photoshop with editing.

Day 3: I got in contact with one of our main characters called Hayley who is playing the part of Charlotte in our trailer. I asked her whether I would be able to take some photos of her the following day for my film poster, to which she agreed and we organised when we would shoot the photos.

Day 4: In our third lesson of the day we had found that we both had a free period so this is when we went to go and take the photos. I had previously located a garage with an old looking brick wall which I decided would be the best place to take the photos as it fitted with what we needed and also incorporates an element of synergy for between the trailer and film poster. The photo I decided to use can be seen below.

Day 5: Now I have my image I can now start to manipulate the image and edit this into the style of a typical film poster, incorporating all the elements that I have found from my research into film posters.

First Draft Feedback

We have now finished our first draft, we decided it would be a good idea to share our first drafts with our class mates to receive some feedback from them as they will be able to give us more critical feedback as they are first time viewers. 

After we held 2 viewings of our trailer this was the positive feedback we received on what they felt worked well:
-They felt the soundtracks we used worked well together and were good as they allowed the pace of our trailer to progress and build up to an adrenaline filled climax.
-They liked the intertitles as we incorporate an aspect of our film into them (the barn).
-They liked the way we built up from a conversation at the beginning of our trailer and ended with a fast paced action filled section.
-They said how our section of quick cuts with a series of fade to blacks onto the barn worked very well.

However we also had some criticisms which were:
-They felt the one of our fade to blacks between a shot reverse shot at the beginning of our trailers made it confusing and didn't add to the film.
-They couldn't hear the conversation between our actors at the end of the trailer as the music was too loud.
-Our audience were split on opinion on whether or not our voice over worked due to the American accent.
-They couldn't see the relevance of our title in our trailer.

After taking these suggestions for improvement in to consideration we decided to make the following changes as we agreed with their comments:

-We simply took out the fade to black between the shot reverse shot and upon reflection it helped to make the conversation a lot clearer.
-We used an expendational fade out for the music at the end of the trailer to make sure you can now here the final conversation.
-We re-done the voice recording with a British accent rather than the American one.
-We actually decided to change our title to D.O.B as it is much more relevant to the narrative in our story having the date of birth as the title, our audience agreed with the decision.

This process was very good as without it we may not have picked up on these simple but very important changes that will dramatically effect the overall end result of our trailer.

Change of plan-Title

We have decided to change the title of our film, this is because although we like the conventions that were incorporated by "18.2" as previously discussed we felt it was too vague. This was apparent after we filmed our footage for the trailer and started to piece it together. A important convention for a quick teaser trailer as we found from research was to maintain a clear narrative that is easy to understand in such a short space of time as 30 seconds as we saw in some clips. Due to this quick pace of our footage we found it was difficult to convey the relevance of the date in our teaser trailer and we decided that it did not fit with the narrative and would simply confuse the audience rather than adding to it. 

This is when we decided to rethink our title for the trailer, after brainstorming the following we came to a decision:

-Run

-A date with death

-Death date

-4 Strangers

-D.O.B

-Those you trust the most

We decided to use D.O.B which is a synonym for date of birth. Firstly we felt it was visually very effective as it is short and snappy to catch the audiences attention, a convention we liked in 1408 as it had the same effect on us as an audience. Secondly we thought about our narrative and because our 4 strangers which are the victims in our film, are all connected by their date of birth it simply made sense to incorporate a key narrative element into the title of the film as the audience will be able to identify with this, further engaging them with the film we are advertising in our trailer.

Planning- Representation in Trailer

Stereotypes
Our four main characters are all teenagers, consequently they have a stereotypical representation of being vulnerable and weak. This is an important stereotype we wanted to incorporate into our film as it allows us to create a sense of danger as the audience will emphasise with the characters dangers. Further to this as we have decided to use a horror sub-genre of thriller, we  wanted to use a physiological element to our trailer to conform to an element of the genre. To achieve this we used a stereotypical antagonist which is typical ghost figure, (tall and dark) which is stereotypically intimidating allowing for us to give the inference that the protagonists are in danger.

Present
As we have a target audience between the ages of 15-25 we wanted to have characters that fit into this age group, allowing us to create a sense of realism. Having 4 teenage main characters allowed us to achieve this as the only character outside this age group is the woman who offers Hayley help. However having an adult in there allowed us to offer the audience a sense of reassurance, although maintaining an element of fear as females are still seen as vulnerable in horror films.

Absent

In our films we have decided to have adult males as absent because stereotypically they connote a sense of reassurance. Therefore if we decided to subvert the convention to heighten the fear of danger, as a younger will find the film more scary if we are to get our preferred reading.

World Created

After our research we know that thrillers stereotypically create a world of danger and violence and we have conformed to this convention in D.O.B. To achieve this we are using our ghost character in the film as the audience never fully get to see it up close and personal, allowing us to tap into the audiences fear of the unknown. After our research we know that a fear of the unknown is an element that creates suspense for the audience, particularly for our younger generation as a target audience.

What is Valued

A main element that is valued in our film is relationships. This is established early on in the film between the 4 main characters as they are all strangers in a foreign location therefore you would expect them to have a hostile relationship. However we focus on a friendly style of relationship which is seen very early on in the our trailer in the shot reverse shots between the characters as they try to figure out what is happening. This importance of which quickly developed friendships is important when stranded in a barn like in ours, as they need to work together to overcome the situation. Therefore good relationships and quick thinking are the main assets we value in the world of our trailer.

Planning- planning and making the intertitles

Firstly we will begin with an intertitle to compliment the narrative in our second shot which was “stranded in the middle of nowhere. This was important as we have seen similar techniques used at the start of other thriller trailers as it builds suspense from the offset. This is because the combination of “stranded”(which makes the characters appear vulnerable) and “in the middle of nowhere” (incorporates the factor of an isolated environment which during our research of what makes something scary was a major factor) makes the audience feel on edge from the outset and also captures their attention which is the most important factor to engage the audience for a short teaser trailer like ours.

Secondly we decided to incorporate a generic convention of the genre which was “from the producers of Karma and Rose”. These are two films that we have already previously made and this was important to convey to our audience as it shows we have experience in film making and portrays a professional film. This is also a feature we found in “Annabelle” and we wanted to conform to this convention as we felt it worked well in their film trailer.

Our third intertitle will be “in the fight for survival”. This is because we have planned for an intertitle to be here which will be just before our montage of quick cuts to create adrenaline for the audience. The ‘fight for survival’ is important because it engages the audience prior to the montage which further emphasises the danger for the characters in the trailer, further creating added adrenaline.

Our last intertitle will be “they must fight back” which is a short and snappy phrase as it allows the audience to read it quickly without losing interest of the trailer which could happen with longer intertitles, an element we have seen in other thriller-horrors like 1408. We also used to word” fight back” as it insinuates a physical battle between good and evil in the film which further incorporates danger which is a main convention for thriller-horror films.

Making our intertitles:

Firstly we felt it was important to find a background for our intertitle that conveyed an element of the thriller-horror genre that our film is, rather than simply using a generic one of the editing software we are using. To do this I searched on google for horror intertitles and I found the background below. I decided to use this one as it is dark like most of the lighting in our film as this is a generic mise-en-scene element for a thriller-horror film.

Once I found this image I was to make it unique to our own film rather than it simply being a generic thriller-horror background. To do this I used Photoshop to combine a shot of the barn which we took whilst filming, which play a major role in our film and the image I found online. I put the two images on a Photoshop document in two different layers as seen below. I then dragged the image of the barn over the top of the intertitle background which made the background disappear. To the combine these two images together I changed the opacity as seen below to 30%, which meant you can see the barn whilst also maintaining the intertitle background. This once again incorporated this element of isolation and further to this the feature of the barn in the woods is something we have seen in other horrors such as “cabin in the woods” and “wrong turn” so it is a generic feature that is also specific to our own film. 

Planning- Communication within our group

Social media was also found to be another great tool for us as a group to use to communicate. This was because Sean's phone broke which meant we couldn't contact him using our Imessage group chat. However he still had a computer with Facebook so we used our social media accounts on Facebook and made a group chat. This use of technology was vital for planning stage of the film. For example when one of us had an idea for our film we could use it to communicate about whether the rest of the group agreed or disagreed. For example at home I made an intertitle using Photoshop and wanted to confirm whether my group felt we should use it for our film. As you can see below it was a useful technique for confirming the intertitle and meant I could progress and prepare it ready to use for our film.

Change of plan- Start of trailer

When we were planning for our film trailer we found a trailer that used a news clip at the start of their trailer which we felt was effective because it broke the verisimilitude for the audience which created an element of realism. After we found this effective convention for a thriller trailer I went away and found a news clip that was a ghost related news clip from BBC news that we could incorporate to include this same element in our own trailer. 

However after we have edited our film with the footage we have taken it was apparent that this news clip simply would not work. This is because we planned to have a 6 second clip from the video at the start of of trailer. However we have already got a slow paced start which creates our own unique narrative. Once we put the clip in as well the opening to the trailer was far too slow and did not have the impact start that we anticipated. Further to this there is a female voice over on the news clip, which is an issue as we have used a generic stereotypical deep male voice later in our trailer which would conflict too strongly with this female voice over at the start. Therefore we have made the decision to remove this style of opening to our movie as we felt it wouldn't add to the trailer, rather it would hinder the effectiveness of it.

Planning- Editing

We have now planned for the majority of the core of our trailer through our planning of our different pieces of footage and the order of them. However now we have started to make decisions about how we will use different editing techniques to conform to typical conventions of the thriller horror. We plan to use:

-Fast paced editing: As we are mirroring the style of pace in 1408 as we like the way the film started off in a slow paced style and the tempo of the trailer built into a montage of fast pace clips. This means we will use fast paced editing by trimming our clips for the montage right down, not only will this engage the audience to great extent but also has the audience wanting to see more. Therefore making the audience want to view the whole film, which we felt when watching the 1408 trailer, this is essentially the whole point for a trailer therefore we want to use this method to contribute to the success of our trailer.

-Fade to blacks: A key feature of thriller trailers is fade to blacks as it keeps the audience engaged as seen in the “Leave To Remain” and it also incorporates a fear of the unknown as it hinders the audience view of certain shots which heightens suspense. We are planning to use these fade to blacks in the build up to our montage to build suspense as said. These will be placed in the conversation between our characters and also in our quick cuts into the barn.

-Zoom: We have also decided to place a slight zoom in on Hayley using key frames to position them when she says “I really don’t like this”. This is a technique we saw in our research of ouji when we was researching and we want to incorporate this convention as it brings in an emphasis on what she is saying.

-Sequencing: The sequencing we are  using in our trailer is very straight forward to maximise the chance of getting a preferred reading from our audience. We are using a very simple sequence of a beginning, a middle and end. This is very clear in our trailer as the trailer starts with a scene of slow paced dialogue, changing into a fast paced montage and then ends with another short piece of dialogue.  This sequencing is further emphasised by our choice of music tracks, starting with a slow eerie track for the start identifies the beginning, the fast paced track emphasises the middle, and the fade of music on the last conversation illustrates it is the end.

-Synchronous sound: We will increase the volume of the sound in our car scene, this is because heightening the sound of the car engine in an action scene where someone is nearly run over like this will dramatically increase the adrenaline for the audience. Using synchronous sound is something we saw in 1408 when the glass smashes and water comes gushing through into the room, it had a similar effect of increasing the fear for the audience.