Introduction

My name is Naomi Tipton, and I am a A2 Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy.
For my coursework I have created a promotional package for an upcoming new film.
Within this promotional package there is :

- A teaser trailer for a upcoming horror film

-A movie poster advertising the new film

-A front cover for a movie magazine promoting the film



I worked as a pair with another peer, Sophie Yates, to film and edit my film trailer. However to make my movie poster, magazine front cover and to compile my blog I worked individually.

Research

Research and Analysis of Teaser Trailers.
For my research I started by thinking about the generic conventions of teaser trailers. After briefly looking at several teaser trailers to gain an insight into their structure, I decided these were the main features or key conventions.

I then went on to analyse 5 teaser trailers and decided to focus on the horror genre, as I felt this was a genre that appealed to me, one I was interested in and felt I wanted to base my work around.
Please click here to see my analysis of my top 5 teaser trailers.
After analysing the trailers I noticed that they all had common conventions within them. These were:Fast paced editing

• Flashes/quick shots
• Backing tracks edited in time with the shots to build up tension
• Voice-over ( either by an actual character or a professional voice-over person)
• USP's. Each have different USP's but each one has a specific USP to make the film attractive to a target audience for example ' based on a true story'.
  

After identifying the common conventions I decided to use these within my own trailer to make it as effective as possible in attracting my target audience and conforming to the horror genre.
I then decided to construct a series of questions and analyse two more horror trailers in significant details.A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 trailer


Please click here to see my in-depth analysis of 'Nightmare on Elm Street'

Friday the 13th Official Teaser Trailer.
Please click here to see my in-depth analysis of this trailer.
Research and Analysis of Film Posters.
The second part of my research consisted of researching the generic conventions of film posters.
I looked at several film posters and decided the generic conventions of them were:

I then went on to analyse two film posters. I looked at one in the horror genre as this is the genre I want to focus on and then looked at a poster for a romantic film so I could see how the two differed and to see whether I wanted to change my mind from focusing on the horror genre.
Please click here to see my film poster analysis of 'P.S I Love You'
Please click here to see my film poster analysis of ' The Exorcism of Emily Rose'

I decided it would be useful to research into how a film poster was actually constructed and what elements make an effective film poster. A useful piece of research into the construction of film posters for me was provided by a DVD from film education. The DVD looked at the construction of the film poster for the film 'Goal' and included and interview with Lee Jury and Steven Burge who are the marketing and managing directors of BVI UK.
Film websites

Even though the A2 brief does not require us to build a website, I decided it would be useful to still take a look at them, to gain an idea into brand identity. I chose the two trailers that I looked into in specific detail.

Nightmare on Elm Street website

This website is quite simple and has the standard black, white and red colour scheme that is associated with the horror genre and the image in the background is shadowed making it look sinister. This communicates the horror genre to the audience. It is obvious is it aimed at a teen/adult audience as it is quite dark and if it was aimed at children it would be much lighter and use more primary based colours. It isn't targeted towards a specific gender as I think it is more targeted towards an age range.

Friday the 13th website

The Friday the 13th website has a lot more features than the Nightmare on Elm street website. It still has the colour scheme of black, white and red to show the horror genre but has features such a forum that the film can be discussed on. As it has these features I feel that the film is based towards a more adult audience because of the way the website is structured. It encourages debates about the film and is secretive and doesn't give to much away. However it can be argued that this secrecy could drawn in a teenage audience.

Audience Research
In order to gain an insight into what my target audience thinks makes a horror teaser trailer effective, I had to construct a questionnaire asking them a series of questions.
Please click here to see an example questionnaire

After I gathered my results, I compiled them and created charts so I could see what percentage of people chose each option.
Please click here to see my results.

Preliminary Task

The purpose of the pre-lim task was to experiment with the camera we were going to use for our final trailer ( Sony HD 1000 ). A group of students and I filmed a basic horror trailer in lesson time around school and then used Premiere Pro to edit it and come up with the final version which can be seen below.
I found this exercise particularly useful as it gave me more confidence in using the equipment and editing tools.
Please click here to see my analysis of my preliminary task.

Institutional Research

For the next part of my research I decided to research into film studios and distribution companies. I found out that the main studios for film at the moment are:

• Sony-Columbia
• Warner Brothers
• 20th Century Fox
• Universal
• Disney
• Dreamworks
• MGM
• Paramount

I then decided to look into each of these studios individually.
Sony-Columbia
Columbia Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. It is owned by Sony Pictures entertainment which is owned by the big Japanese company Sony. It is one of the major companies in the world and is in the top 'Big 6' of film production companies around the world. It is also in the 'Little 3' of the 8 main film production companies in Hollywood's Golden Age. Columbia Pictures became one of the major motions to do 'screwball comedy'.
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox is owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and is one of the six major American film studios .
Some of it's most well known films include:

• Ice Age
• Garfield
• X-Men
• Planet of the Apes
• Night at the museum
• The chronicles of Narnia ( previously distributed to Walt Disney)
• Star Wars

Fox and 20th century were two separate companies until they merged. before the merge 20th century was most famous for producing the classic film Les Miserables. Fox then announced a subsidiary called Fox STAR studios which was a joint venture with STAR TV which would be the major producer of Bollywood films.
Universal Studios
Universal studios is a subsidary of NBC Universal and is one of the six major movie studios. It is also the second longest-lived studio. In the 1920's Walt Disney worked for the company before making his claim to fame and had an overall influence on the company of Universal Studios. He created the well known character of Mickey Mouse whilst working at Universal Studios.
The studios have a history of having a successful niche of horror films including:

• Frankenstein
  
• Dracula
• The Mummy

The 1931 sheet poster is considered to be the most valuable movie poster in the world, with only one copy known to exist. Universal studios has also had many successful blockbuster movies including:

• Jaws
• E.T The Extra Terrestrial
  
• Back to the Future
• Jurassic Park

Universal teamed up with Paramount Pictures to form Cinema International Corporation, which distributed films by Paramount and Universal worldwide. It was replaced by United International Pictures in 1981 when MGM joined the fold. Then MGM dropped out of the venture allowing 20th Century Fox to distribute it's films instead.
Disney
Walt Disney is known for being one of the most successful Hollywood studios in production of film and is noteworthy for being the only film studio to have three films that have gained past the 1 billion dollar mark. These films were:

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ( 2006 )
• Alice in Wonderland (2010)
• Toy Story 3 (2010 )

Disney is also the only studio to have released two films in a year (2010) that have both gain over 1 billion dollar at box office.
Disney has worked with and also has many partners including:

• Caravan Pictures
• Marvel Studios
• Spyglass Entertainment
• Gunn Films

Disney is most well known for the genres of animated movies, children's films and adventure films.

I then decided to research into UK Studios as well as American studios.

BBC Studios
It currently produces around 8 films a year and is paid for by the British public through the 'TV License'.
Some of it's most well known and popular films include:

• Tormented
• The Damned United ( co-production with Columbia Pictures )
• An Education
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
• Billy Elliot ( with Working Title films )

Film 4
Film 4 are a British film company that are owned by the British TV channel 'Channel 4'.
Some of it's most well know and successful films include:

• Slumdog Millionaire ( co-production with Fox Searchlight pictures, Warner Bros, Pathe and Celador Films)
• Trainspotting
• This is England
• East is East

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Planning

When starting to plan the trailer we had many ideas based around the horror genre. We thought about what the horror genre includes and displayed our ideas as a mood board which we referred to for inspiration. We constructed our mood board using Google images and we searched terms that we recognised as being familiar with the horror genre. I found my mood board particularly useful for generating inspiration but also found it worked as a collective collage displaying some of the key conventions of the horror genre.

After deciding to focus on the horror genre, we decided to ask ourselves some questions to form our initial ideas.

Who will you be working with? Sophie Yates

Chosen genre and why? Horror as this is a genre that we are interested in and feel that we know something about.
Target audience for your film? Our target audience for our trailer is 17-25 as we feel this is the age group that tend to watch horror films. Horror isn't a niche genre as such as it has a wide spectrum of people that watch horror films and doesn't require a certain level of intelligence or specific focused interest such as genres like film noir.

USP for your film? Our USP for our trailer is that it is star driven. We decided this as most horror films we know of are either star or director driven. From discussing it within our pair we feel that a film being star driven is much more likely to attract our target audiences interest as it's a lot easier to recognise the star of a film than it is to recognise a director.
Producer/s for your film? We decided that we were going to use Universal studios to produce and distribute our film as after researching into institutions this was the studio with the most experience of the horror genre.

Distributors of your film? See above answer.

Shot List
When planning our trailer we decided on the following shot list :

1. Tracking shot of the main character walking from her car. Stills images taken in a sequence to give the audience the impression she is being watched.
2. Long shot of the girl opening her curtains. Camera is placed in the trees. Gives the audience a shot of the girl from the stalkers point of view.
3. Shot of the moon moving across the clouds in the dark.
4. Long shot of a shadow in the woods. Edited to be a quick flash to build up tension within the trailer.
5. Shots of photos of the girl being laid down on the table. Edited so the shot is quicker. Gives the audience the impression that the shots are being built up over time.
6. Shot of villain standing underneath a lantern. Editing so the lantern flickers and the villains face is distorted.
7. Graveyard shot of the villain walking towards the camera looking menacing.
8. Shot of the villain touching the girls arm whilst she is asleep. Build up tension within the audience.
9. Mid-shot of the victim holding the knife. Relates to Carol Clover's study of the image of a female victim within horror films.
10. Torch in the dark flickering.
11. Villain with his hand pressed against the window. Gives the audience the feeling that the villain is getting closer to the girl.
12. Girl opens the curtains and the villain appears.
13. Girl crying on the floor. Creates sympathy within the audience for the character.
14. Shaky camera shot of the floor. Gives the audience an insight to the perspective of the girl character as she tries to escape.
15. Hand of the villain appears over the girls shoulder.
16. Girl lay unconscious at the bottom of the staircase with blood across her face. Creates a sense of mystery as the audience don't know whether she fell or has been pushed.
17. Girl on the phone underneath her bed.
18. Girl shuffling backwards on the floor of the woods whilst the villain charges at her with a hammer.
19. Reverse shot of the trailer at high speed.
20. Girl lights a match in the dark illuminating her face and the audience see the villain appear over her shoulder blowing the match out.

Animatic Storyboard

Risk Assessment
Before we could start filming our trailer, we had to consider the risks involved in filming it. We sat and looked at our shots and discussed what risks could arise when filming. We constructed a grid of shots that contained risks and wrote what we did to avoid these.
Please click here to see my risk assessment grid.

Plot synopsis

'A story of a father whose daughter is taken and brutally murdered when she was just a young woman and her body is found in a local riv er. The father is consumed with grief and guilt and becomes withdrawn from his community. Years later, a young woman moves in across the street and she strikes an uncanny resemblance to the father's daughter. He

notices this and becomes obsessed with the idea of her as his mental health deteriorates. The father decides he is going to kill the young woman and he feel that someone should have to suffer for the pain him and his daughter have gone through. He becomes determined to makes the young woman's life hell as she is alive and his daughter

is not. A series of events occur within the film but this twisted storyline turns into murderous violence.'
This was our final plot synopsis for our trailer. We changed the story several times as we played around with ideas for example:

• We had the idea that his daughter simply went missing and the young woman turned out to be his daughter
• We thought about different times of year such as setting it on Halloween or Christmas but we felt this idea would be too similar to films that have already been made.

Location Details

Our film trailer was set in the village of Gawsworth.
We used this house for our interior shots.

We used this graveyard for some of our exterior shots to create a sinister atmosphere.

This was the location for our point of view hand held camera shots to give the audience the characters sense of fear.

We used Maggoty Wood in Gawsworth for our shots with the shadows and torches. We also

used the woods for some of our

end shots in the trailer where the girl is struggling with the villain.

Actors List

Chloe Yates- plays the girl within the trailer being stalked by the villain. She is also a theatre student and we felt she would be a versatile actress to include within the trailer.

Mark Blackman - plays the grief stricken villain.
We felt that Mark fitted the image we had for our villain very well and has had experience in the acting field before. Mark is also the voice used in our voice over and we felt he was suitable for this as he is a radio presenter and has many years experience in working on the radio and with voice.

Script for dialogue and voice over
From conducting research into other film trailers voice over and dialogue, in particular the film 'The Tourist' I saw it was crucial that t

he voice over and dialogue indicates the storyline to the audience, as this is what makes them want to watch the film. I decided that my dialogue and voice over included within my trailer should indicate my plot line to the audience in order to make my target audience want to watch it.
This is the script for my voice over:
Key : Professional voice over
Villain

Random voice
Victim

'When a man’s obsession drives him toofar
The only solution is murder

What do you want from her?

Come here!

A story of revenge, loss and love

Go away!
His past will always haunt his future'

I feel that the professional voice over reveals the overall basic plot line of the story and reveals a little about the story of the villain.
I think the random voice shouting 'What do you want from her?' indicates to the audience that there is a person within the film that is helping the victim and confronts the villain and this could entice the target audience into watching the film as they want to find out who the voice belongs too.
The victim shouting 'Go away!' indicates to the audience that she is scared of the villain and is desperate to get away from him.

From the voice over I feel that an audience will be able to gather a substantial understanding of the storyline and the relationship between the victim and the villain.

Music and music choices
From our research and analysing horror teaser trailers we knew that our music would be a key element in creating the tense atmosphere that will make our teaser effective.
Firstly we googled 'copyright free music' and found a really useful site : www.freeplaymusic.com

We used the search tools and selected categories such as 'Feeling -suspense and terror' into the search tool. The website then generated results that we could listen to previews of and if we wanted to use it, download the track as MP3.
We chose tracks that we thought were atmospheric and we also chose tracks that we thought would work well together in creating a tense atmosphere that was full of suspense.
Sound effects
We also thought about sound effects and sourced them from our media technician's catalogue and sound bank. We sourced clips of screams, punches, sighs, and a typewriter. We knew that we didn't intend to use all of the sound effects but thought they would be useful for experimentation and to see which sound effects worked best with certain shots for example the shot where the villain is charging at the victim with a hammer.

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Teaser Trailer
I feel that my teaser trailer follows the forms and conventions of horror trailers as I have included the key elements that are usually identified within horror trailers. For example :
- Dark shots
- Fast paced editing
- Girl victim
- A storyline including a stalker/killer
- Shots of weapons e.g knife
- visual elements associated with horror trailers i.e blood
- stereotypical locations such as a graveyard and woods.
I feel that my audience will feel that my trailer is a horror as I have used all the stereotypical elements associated with the genre.
I have evaluated my trailer in more detail in the form of screengrabs that can be seen below.

Screengrabs

From this shot within my trailer, I have conformed to the conventions of the horror genre, that have been mentioned in previous sections. The theme of having a stalker/killer villain within a horror is common and as theorist ' ' says that conforming to the horror genre within film provides the audience with a safety net that they can rely on as audiences prefer familiarity to surprises. I took this into consideration when planning my trailer and think conforming to the genre is identifyable especially within this particular shot.

This shot within my trailer conveys the typical horror storyline of there being a stalker. I decided to make the shot black and white to convey that the shot is from the stalkers point of view compared to the rest of the shots that are in colour. In between the shots there are two separate black masks that come into the centre of the screen quickly as if to give the impression of a camera lens snapping. The sound effect of a camera click conveys that the stalker is taking pictures of her as he is obsessed.

This shot within my trailer conveys the main relationship that is commonly identified within horror trailers - the villain and the victim.

Carol Clover's last girl theory states that within a large proportion of horror trailers there is a girl victim who is always the last one left at the end of the film and has to fight the villain.

As this had been identified as a common convention within horror trailers I decided to adopt this theory and this is conveyed in the shot above and the shot below.

This shot conveys the horror genre through the various elements within it. The portrayal of the young girl as innocence comes from her glasses, which show that she may have more intelligence than physical strength to fight back, and her neutral baby pink coat. The captors' hand is clearly more masculine and threatening, and his clothes are darker. The forest setting is a stereotypical horror environment, as it is eerie and creepy. Furthermore, the girl's facial expression clearly shows terror and pain or worry.
Movie Poster

The image used on my movie poster is of the main actress within the film showing her as a victim. As she is clutching the knife and her hand is covered in blood this doesn't only connote the horror genre to the audience but gives an indication that she fighting against something or someone which is a common convention in horror storylines. The font I have used for the title is the same font used within my trailer, which establishes brand identity which allows the audience to be able to recognise the link between the two. I based my poster on a well known movie poster ' One missed call' .

I positioned my tagline in the same place as the ' One Missed Call' poster as when I first saw the poster it caught my eye and I wanted my tagline to do the same thing for my audience.

I followed the generic conventions of movie posters by positioning the credits at the bottom along with website information and positioning my image in the middle of the poster.

Film magazine

My magazine front cover uses a black, white and red colour scheme that can be seen in other major movie magazines such as Empire and Total Film. My masthead uses a play on words as 'Extra' can not only connote behind the scenes features, but also extras on set of a film. The image used is of the actress from my teaser trailer. This shows that my film trailer's USP is star appeal. She is not in costume or character showing that the magazine is also promoting her as an actress. Generic magazine conventions such as a features bar and Z formation are used to make the magazine seem more authentic.

2. How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that the combination of my main product and my ancillary texts is quite effective. I have used the same font that I used in my trailer on both my ancillary texts so it is clear to my audience that there is a link between the three. As my USP for my trailer is that it would be star driven I have included my main actress Chloe in each of my products, so to my audience she would be automatically recognisable. As I don't have her in character on my magazine front cover this shows she is being promoted as an actress and therefore in the spotlight, making my audience want to see my film. The colour scheme of my products relates to one another as they rely heavily on black, white and red. This is because these are the colours which relate to the horror genre and as each of my products use the same colour scheme it is clear to my audience that there is a link between the products. I used the same colour gray for the title of my film on each product, again establishing a clear link between them and making the title easily recognisable. The overall darkness within the three products as well as the editing within my trailer conveys the horror genre to my audience.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
My first initial audience feedback was gathered when I conducted my research questionnaires into horror films and what my target audience would expect from a new horror film. (Questionnaires and results can be viewed in the research section of my blog.)
I found this information useful after I had drawn out my results as I could see what percentage of my audience preferred which category and I could include their feedback into my trailer to make it the most effective it could be.I held interviews asking a few individuals that fit into my target audience what they thought of the horror genre and what horror films that had seen and enjoyed and why.I found this extremely useful talking to my target audience one on one as I was able to gain their personal insight and opinion instead of just a statistic.

I took on board everything I had heard from my target audience during my developmental research and tried to include this within my trailer.

When I had finished the final version of my trailer, I held a second focus group to gain my audiences opinion of my trailer and to see whether they thought the trailer was effective.
Please click here to hear the audio file of my focus group.

4. How did I use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

New media technologies helped me sufficiently with each section of completing my A2 coursework brief. Below is a break down of how new media technologies helped me in each section.

Construction
The beginning part of my construction process was actually filming my trailer. I used a Sony HD 1000 camera for this. I'd had plenty of practise with the camera from constructing my preliminary task and knew all the different settings and exposures. I allowed myself to experiment with these for example night vision shots. I also used a tripod for some of my shots, but as hand held camera work is associated with the horror genre from films such as 'Paranormal Activity' I used a variety of hand held and static tripod shots.
I used a stills camera for my images on my magazine front cover and my film poster and I used the studio with the professional lights and backdrop to take my shots in.

I edited and constructed my trailer using Adobe Premiere Pro and for special effects such as the masked camera sequence at the beginning of my trailer I used Adobe After Effects but linked the two programmes together so that whenever I update

d my After Effects sequence it would automatically import it into Premiere Pro and into my trailer. I was able to cut and bend my shots, and edited the contrast and saturation on some of them and also the volume levels throughout so that my voiceover etc could be heard over my music.
I used Adobe Photoshop to construct my film poster and agazine cover, and added my own personal touches to it, such as creating my own brush so I could achieve the effect I wanted on my movie poster.

Research
Whilst conducting my research before constructing my film trailer the internet was the main tool that I used, especially Google.
The internet helped me construct my mood board and research into the generic conventions of teaser trailers. I then used Wordle, to construct my word mind maps that are displayed within my research section.
Youtube was also a primary website I used, and it allowed me to watch and research into horror teaser trailers, as well as upload my own content to link to this blog.
Microsoft word and Microsoft powerpoint were the main programmes I used to type up my work and in order to link them to this blog, Slideshare and Google Documents were especially useful.
Wikipedia was also useful when I was researching into film companies and allowed me to research into iconic and influencial movements concerning the horror genre.

Planning
During my planning section I used websites such as Freeplay music to find my music for my trailer. Freeplay was especially useful and was where I got all my music from for my trailer.
I used a stills camera in order to take picture for my animatic storyboard and used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit them together to form the finished product. I used google documents to host my risk assessment and Microsoft word to type it up.


Evaluation
My evaluation of my A2 coursework is this blog. Blogger has been useful in allowing me to document each section of my work and allowing me to host videos and documents online. I have found Blogger helpful in allowing me to display my work in an interesting and easily accessable way.