Ben’s Blog

My main contribution to the group trailer is that I am doing the editing of the trailer. I also did a few shots, acted as a victim being dragged (although I/we cut myself from the final version with Aaron being used instead as a shot with Aaron looked better) and I co-held (with Danny) a lamp up to bring light to the scene, as it was too dark for the camera to see but the lights made it much too bright.

 

To prepare for editing, the research/looking at trailers had come in very useful and I had learnt how to work the Windows Movie Maker program (using it to edit the trailer) through my teacher who explained to the class and to me.

 

When I started editing the trailer, which took about 3 hours to plan (while at location) and shoot, I narrowed the trailer down to under a minute through editing (knowing that teaser trailers are usually between 30 seconds & a minute). The biggest problem I solved early on through editing early on was a part of the trailer where someone is meant to be at a computer typing and then walking to the door. I was not present during this shot, as me & Danny were doing the running up the stair shots (Danny’s ended up being used), and when the footage from our 3 hour approx shoot was put on the school computers, I saw this shot that we only had 1 of and it was very bad. The screen was obviously not being typed on (pretending to type- nothing happening on the screen which was visible), and to make the shot easier another person had done 1 of the arms while Aaron did the other and they were very obviously not belonging to the same person. However, through editing, I managed to save the shot. I did this by cutting the start of it (split footage section into 2 and cut the first part I had split) and starting the shot with the hands moving away, so the problem of typing nothing is eliminated and it looks like the hands are both the same plus it still shows what was needed, a person on the computer, moving off to the door.

 

As well as editing footage for problems with the footage (such as the computer shot mentioned earlier), I also did editing for effect (eg: such as adding special effects like fade to black) and to make it look like a trailer by condensing a lot of the footage to make it run quicker (also with the computer scene I cut in the middle lots of the walking time from the computer to the door as trailers are usually fast paced and a long amount of walking time was not necessary, especially for the quick flashes of attacks later on in the trailer).

 

As for the sound, we as a group had planned to put music over it, so when we were filming, we were not paying attention to sound and therefore had unwanted sound such as “Go”, so I solved this by bringing in a random CD of mine (as songs usually have a short silence between songs) and got this over 1 second of silence from my CD and repeated until the song came in. As for the song, we had planned for rock music but I left the decision with Danny & Conor as they are rock fans and I would probably not have been able to come up with a good suggestion. Conor sent me a song called “Bodies” which I found out related very well with what happened in the trailer plus the song builds up from a whispering vocal to a screamed vocal word and rock instruments, so I worked around the position of the song and footage so that the heaviness of the song starts exactly when the first attack on the trailer is shown. So I ended up placing the song in at approximately 20 seconds in and ran it until the end of the trailer, which ends at approx. 43 seconds, so the song runs for approx. 23 seconds. However I did not originally do this, as I originally planned the song to run through the whole of the trailer through repeating the first part of the song, which features a whispering vocal saying “let the bodies hit the floor”, but I thought that it was too repetitive this way, and people who watched the trailer also gave this feedback so as I said, I changed the start part to silence, using the end of a song “Clear It Out” by Trina (picked up a CD of mine randomly) to be able to put the silence on a trailer, blocking out unneeded sound from the filming (rock music was always planned to go over it). So before the “Bodies” song comes in at approx 20 seconds in, the trailer is silent. I think this works as it builds up suspense and makes it dramatic when the attacking starts.

 

As well as editing sound and footage, I also created and pasted in a ‘12A trailer’ screen, the film’s logo (including the title) and a ‘coming soon’ with film company logo’s using the internet to get the logo’s from, Microsoft Word to create on and get text from and Microsoft Paint to save as pictures which then allowed me to put into the trailer. The pictures automatically ran for too long so I shortened the time they are on the screen also.

(The film poster pictures above are 3 different shots of my poster in planning/development and the shot below this is my final complete version of the poster)

Before creating my film poster, I had researched and annotated real film posters to get knowledge and ideas from. I did not get much ideas or knowledge from doing it this year as I had already done this type of research before and therefore I was already familiar with poster conventions, plus I knew what I wanted to do for my poster.

 

The program that I used to create this poster was Microsoft Publisher and I used fonts from the program, except for the “Through The Eyes Of A Killer” part which was created by Conor and the whole group used as it is the film logo promoting the same film. Although for the ‘chiller’ font on ‘Danny Millen’ and ‘Conor Campbell’ I imported from Microsoft Word because it has an ‘emboss’ feature  which makes the font stand out and it made it look different for a bit of variety but still keeping the red/black theme.

As for the picture, pictures were done with the filming and we planned for filming so plans are the same (plans can be seen in my research & planning)

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Since I wrote the above I slightly updated the poster by changing the ‘contains strong violence, etc…’ to red so that it fits in more with the colour scheme of the poster. Although it is informing people I decided it should still look a part of the poster, and I also made the picture slightly bigger to make it stand out more. And I also made the ‘Universal’ and ‘Dolby Digital’ plus the ’18′ certificate smaller as they seemed too big and a realistic poster is the aim. Here is a screenshot:

But I later decided that I would use this version & I added a website onto the poster. This is the final version:

(^^ OLD WORK IN PROGRESS VERSION OF THE MAGAZINE ^^)

I created my film magazine before filming and taking pictures for the film trailer of the fictional film “Through The Eyes Of A Killer”, using a temporary picture of female rapper Diamond so I could work on the magazine with a layout similar-ish to the shot I wanted for the magazine when pictures/film would be taken. So although I knew I would still have to change it around slightly after putting in the real/original image, it allowed me a basic layout to work on. So I got a barcode, the picture of Diamond and started work on it. First I decided the film magazine title which I decided would be Film Now, and then I thought about how to create a good text for it and instead of using word art from Microsoft Word, or text from Microsoft Publisher I decided to go on a font site and type in my magazine. I used dafont.com and didn’t need to change the automatic colour background of white (when copied and pasted) as I wanted this to go with and stand out against my black background/dark image. After doing this I decided fonts and created/typed film titles, features, etc…plus magazine date, issue number, magazine website and the price (which I decided as it is issue 1, a new magazine, it should be on special offer to attract new customers so I made it £2). As for my features I used real actors/actresses (except for my group fictional film “Through The Eyes Of A Killer”), ending up mentioning Halle Berry, Nicholas Cage & Queen Latifah on my final version. I originally also had Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller + Jim Carrey written with “The Laugh” feature but I ended up not featuring their names as through looking at the annotations/covers of real film magazines, the features were short, so I shorted down and slightly changed the features, an example is I changed “Exclusive film review: City Kill: starring Nicholas Cage & Queen Latifah” to “City Kill: Nicholas Cage vs. Queen Latifah”. And as well as changing/shortening features, I also made the main feature (my fictional group film “TTEOAK” as the magazine is promoting the film along with my poster & film trailer) much bigger and more prominent compared to the other features.

(^^ Finished version of the magazine ^^)

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Since the above, I have made some changes to the magazine. Taking bold off the “The Best Films Of 2009 So Far” so it is clearer to see, especially from a distance. I have also changed the “Film Now” logo background from white to black , blending in perfectly with the rest of the magazine. Also I have made it bigger so that it stands out more. Here is the updated version of the magazine (screenshot):

Since I last blogged about the A2 Media  task of creating a film trailer, my school teachers suggested doing a group trailer, shooting the film trailer together and promoting the film by doing seperate and different posters and magazine covers. I and other people decided to join a group, so me & 3 people: Danny, Aaron and Conor, as a group decided to choose Conor’s film idea to develop into our film trailer. His idea is a horror film called “Through The Eyes Of A Killer” shot in “first person” (from the eye view of who is featured in the film). The narrative of the film is…

 

To prepare for this, Conor had already prepared a storyboard for the film, but changed and added some scenes. And we also changed some more before filming to work well with the location we had planned, a flat building, featuring the inside of a flat. To get this location, deciding where to film. All 4 of us had a group talk, finding out where we could film it, Aaron arranged this, as he had the inside of a flat and the building inside available which was perfect for the film. Then we discussed when we could get together and film it, needing to find Conor’s work times as he works, so after Conor got the information, we arranged to meet 1 day after school, did so and filmed in about 3 hours.

 

For the filming, we borrowed 2 cameras and I brought them to the flat building/flat for the filming. With the cameras, Conor bought the storyboard he had completed with him. We used resources from the flat, such as a computer to type on and a lamp and extension for it (so it could travel further distance and still work). We needed the computer as part of the narrative and the lamp/extension for filming/mise-en-scene. For the film, we decided to shoot it when it was dark (set at night), and the camera hardly picked up any footage as it was too dark and if lights in the flat building were turned on it was too bright. So we solved this by getting using the lamp and extension cord, holding it over the actors when they were filming for the film so that it picked up the footage but didn’t make it too bright, still looking like night but with the camera able to see. Danny started off holding the lamp, but I then took over for the longest period of time. We used 2 cameras, a flip video and a professional looking camera. Shooting most the footage with the professional looking one, but some with the flip video incase 1 looked better than the other.

 

As for the pictures for our 4 magazines and 4 posters, we were going to use film stills as pictures but Danny & Conor decided to take real pictures with a digital camera another time.

For my research into target audience I created a questionnaire (my blank Q above ^^) and gave copies out to be filled out and here are the results of 10 out of the 30 answered questionnaires:

 KEY:

Q1: Age
Q2: Gender

Q3: What is your favourite genre of film?
Q4: What is your favourite film of this year?
Q5: What film have you most recently seen advertised?

Q6: What stood out in the advertisement you most recently saw?

Q7: Do you go the cinema?
Q8: And if yes, how often do you go?

Q9: What most makes you want to go and see a film?

Q10: How do you watch films?

Q11: Do you choose (search for) to watch film trailers?

Q12: Do you read film reviews before you watch the film?

 

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QUESTIONNAIRE 1:

Q1: 16

Q2: Male

Q3: Action

Q4: Harry Potter (And The Half Blood Prince)

Q5:  Inglorious (Basterds)

Q6: Entertainment

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Trailers

Q10: DVD, Blu-Ray, Cinema, Game  Consoles

Q11: No

Q12: Yes

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QUESTIONNAIRE 2:

Q1: 16

Q2: Female

Q3: Horror

Q4: He’s Just Not That Into You

Q5: Final Destination 3D

Q6: (Didn’t answer)

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every week

Q9: Trailers

Q10: DVD

Q11: Yes

Q12: No

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QUESTIONNAIRE 3:

Q1: 16

Q2: Female

Q3: Other: Chick Flick

Q4: Fast And Furious 4

Q5: Fame

Q6: The Dancing

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every year

Q9: Other: How good the advert looks

Q10: DVD, Cinema, VHS, Game Consoles, iPod’s

Q11: No

Q12: No

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QUESTIONNAIRE 4:

Q1: 16
Q2: Male

Q3: Comedy

Q4: Dog House

Q5: Zombieland

Q6: Comedy And Gore

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Sequel

Q10: DVD, Cinema, Game Consoles, iPod’s

Q11: Yes

Q12: Yes

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QUESTIONNAIRE 5:

Q1: 16
Q2: Male
Q3: Comedy

Q4: Paul Blart Mall Cop

Q5: Zombieland

Q6: Zombies

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Trailers

Q10: DVD

Q11: Yes

Q12: No

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QUESTIONNAIRE 6:

Q1: 16
Q2: Female
Q3: Other: Rom-Com

Q4: 500 Days OF Summer

Q5: Halloween 2 / Zombieland

Q6: The Zombies

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Trailers

Q10: Cinema

Q11: No

Q12: No

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QUESTIONNAIRE 7:

Q1: 17
Q2: Male
Q3: Comedy

Q4: Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs

Q5: Up

Q6: (Didn’t answer)

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Story of the film

Q10: DVD

Q11: Yes

Q12: Yes

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QUESTIONNAIRE 8:

Q1: 16

Q2: Male

Q3: Comedy + Other: Animation

Q4: Ice Age 3

Q5: Up

Q6: (Didn’t Answer)

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Trailers

Q10: Cinema

Q11: Yes

Q12: No

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QUESTIONNAIRE 9:

Q1: 16

Q2: Male

Q3: Comedy

Q4: Ice Age 3

Q5: Toy Story 3

Q6: (Didn’t Answer)

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every month

Q9: Trailers

Q10: Cinema

Q11: Yes

Q12: No

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QUESTIONNAIRE 10:

Q1: 17

Q2: Female

Q3: Horror

Q4: Drag Me To Hell

Q5: 500 Days Of Summer

Q6: (Didn’t Answer)

Q7: Yes

Q8: Every week

Q9: Trailers

Q10: Cinema

Q11: Yes

Q12: No

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Q6 cannot really be applied as I made a mistake on my questionnaire and forgot to include the options, so most people didn’t answer. I will however make up for this by making a 2 question questionnaire and give it to people to fill out so I can get this info. The 2 questions will be the same as 1 featured on the main questionnaire- What film have you most recently seen advertised? And What stood out in the adverisement you most recently saw? I will put options on the 2nd question this time and then I will use this information as well as the information from the main questionnaire for my research (so 2Q Questionnaire coming soon!)

 

Here is a scanned example of a questionnaire I got filled out (double sided):

My conclusions before pre-production is that I have good knowledge of film trailers, posters & magazines conventions. I have also considered what music I might use but will not know how good it sounds until my trailer is filmed. I created a questionnaire and got them filled out (will post soon) to get information on the target audience which is useful, annotated posters and music magazine covers to get more knowledge, know conventions, etc… and I wrote about/researched the BBFC as they will fictionally rate my film and I also reviewed/noted the conventions of 2 films (one horror and one not my genre) so I think I am well set up to start pre-production next week (after analysing my questionnaire results which will do tomorrow and posting my film idea in more detail than my original post).

Conventions of teaser trailers:

ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS [CONVENTIONS]: (comedy)

The trailer starts with Film studio logos, 20th Century Fox & Blue Sky Studios, there are then quick shots of parts in the film, with longer shots then being shown and dialogue from the film being used, there is a voiceover (starts off by saying “this year”), then a blue screen and the title of the film while voice over is saying it, then release ‘coming soon’ and website. There is also dramatic instrumental music played in it.

 

^^ All conventions are used in this trailer, background sound, dialogue from the film, clips from the film (including dialogue), film studios at the start, information on the film (eg: release date), voiceover (although not always used), etc…

 

[ICE AGE 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs: Review]

I think the trailer is effective as the dramatic music works with the footage, because the clips from the film are funny (comedy is meant to be funny so good if features in trailer), and it looks and sounds professional/good (eg: the voiceover), giving a good impression of the film.

 

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (CONVENTIONS): (horror)

The trailer starts with Film studio logo, Icon, then an untraditonal feature as the footage and text do not seem to be with the film, then there is a logo for IM Global, and then the film is shown on screen but with an audience being shown, however there is traditional horror sounding music. We see the audience many times. There are quotes about the film, which is unconventional, then ‘experience it for yourself’ and the title, “Paranomal Activity”
^^ This is overall not conventional as films do not feature the supposed audience watching the film in the trailer, and do not contain footage not featured (seeming not to as I have not seen the film) and quotes about the film, not conventional. But in the trailer there are  film logos, title and horror sounding music, attempts to scare, which are conventional. ^^

 20th Century Fox & Blue Sky Studios, there are then quick shots of parts in the film, with longer shots then being shown and dialogue from the film being used, there is a voiceover (starts off by saying “this year”), then a blue screen and the title of the film while voice over is saying it, then release ‘coming soon’ and website. There is also dramatic instrumental music played in it.

 

^^ All conventions are used in this trailer, background sound, dialogue from the film, clips from the film (including dialogue), film studios at the start, information on the film (eg: release date), voiceover (although not always used), etc…

 

 [PARANORMAL ACTIVITY- review]

I think the trailer could be effective and not effective depending on who is watching. In my opinion, it is not effective because this film is designed to scare, and if they had to do something else instead of showing the film to scare, it suggests that the film is low quality/not scary so in my opinion it is not effective. Also the film is unconventional doing this audience added format and quotes form the film and I think the quotes help but everyone has different opinions and they could have been paid to see anything, etc…so not much. So in my opinion it is not a good trailer in terms of promoting the film but effective in being different and maybe causing a lot of people to talk about it.

ABOUT THE BBFC:

The BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) are a UK company that regulates what films can be seen by certain people by giving them certificates, which are enforced by law (eg: under 18’s will not be allowed to see an ‘18′ certificate film at a cinema, or buy on DVD, Blu-Ray, etc…). All countries have their own ways of regulating films, some involve censoring (cutting down footage) or certification (eg: 15) and some use both methods. There is concern that films may impact individuals and society in a negative way, which is why the BBFC, MPAA, and other film regulators give films certificates. These concerns are mostly related to Sex, Violence, Swearing, Drug Use, Cruelty (in the making of the film) and Politics. The BBFC have to either rate, cut, or ban films submitted to them (all films in the UK must be submitted otherwise they cannot be shown/sold). For audiences, the BBFC can be very useful, especially to parents as they may not want their children to be exposed to strong violence for example. They also have negative effect however for the filmmakers as if they recieve a high rating, it will stop a lot of possible audience members helping their film to success (a real example is that the  film “Bruno”, which was given an 18 certificate, and they were missing a lot of their audience, 15, 16 and 17 year olds, so an edited version called “Bruno: Snipped” was released with a 15 certificate from the BBFC). And this does not happen very often, so often younger people will want to see high rated films and will not be able to via legal methods (anyone could download a film illegally from the internet but going to the cinema, buying on DVD, etc…would not be able to happen) which is a negative to those people.

 

As my fictional film will be released in the UK (although am only doing teaser trailer, poster and magazine cover), this means it would be rated by the BBFC and because my film would be rated, I may include this on my poster, and my trailer would need to be rated so my knowledge of the BBFC is needed so that I can rate my film/trailer appropriately and so I can get the 15 certificate I want for my film.

 

 

Conventions Of Horror Films:

Conventions of Horror films are things that are usually featured. For the genre of horror, these are very common features:

- Blood / - Gore / - Killers/Murderers / - Victims / - Screaming/Fear / - Weapons (knives, guns, etc…) / Dark lighting/dark places/night / - Dead and damaged bodies / - Things to scare audiences / - Hostages / - Good vs. Evil

^^ The dark colours/background used and high usage of the colour red are conventions of horror ^^

“The Final Destination” poster:

The poster features the standard credit block, tagline (“Death saved…the best for last”) & title of the film. Also it features information about the film being available to see in 3D (with a special tagline “Death is closer than ever in digital 3-D”) (and the film is shown in 2D in selected cinemas) which my fictional film “Addicted To Murder” (possible title) will be available to watch in and will so feature this information. It is also missing a release date which is very important information. Something common on film posters are names of actors/actresses in the film (and often directors) and there are none on this poster. This is because the “Final Destination” films feature unknown/new actors in their film and for my film I will stick to the common famous actors/actresses thing in my film, as I think this is usually a big attraction for people to see a film (eg: If a film comes out starring Will Ferrell, he will have some fans that will go and see the film just because he is in it).

 

As for the partial narrative displayed on the poster, there is a head (half skull) and shattered glass. The half skull and half skin of the head shows that the person is dying as skin represents life and skulls represent death and the glass shattering enforces the destruction/death theme of ‘death’ killing people. And this partial narrative displayed on the poster relates to the film as in the film people die.

 

I think that the “Final Destination” poster is effective because it shows the theme of death and partial narrative (through skin to skull), as well as showing it is a poster for a horror film by featuring the death convention and mostly dark colours (except for text which is yellow, white and red). I think the dark colour is a common convention of horror and an effective one and I will most likely use this for my poster (for example: If a film poster had mainly yellow and pink, it would not give the effect of a horror film). As for the skull and skin idea, I will not use this idea as this would make my poster too unoriginal/copied and my main character in the film is the killer (not the victims as there are many). As for the negative, I think more colour would make it more interesting but this is fine, as it  fits the horror convention. And the font doesn’t suit horror films in my opinion so I will use differently.

“The Invention Of Lying” poster:

The poster also features the standard credit block, tagline (“In a world where everyone can only tell the truth…this guy can lie”)  & title of the film. Also this film features common features (although not featured on the “The Final Destination” poster, which is common (except the release date) to not be features on horror film posters): Actors in the film, pictures of characters in the film (although some posters, more commonly in horror films do not feature pictures of characters/actors) and the film’s release date (October 2^nd).  Also this poster features 3 quotes from the film (1 of them being “It’s Not Me, It’s You”), a ‘from the…’ (‘from the co-creator of ‘The Office’ and ‘Extras’) which links makers (eg: Director) of other films/TV shows to this film.

 

I think that the “Invention Of Lying” poster is effective because of its bright colours (mainly white & blue)- its bright colours show well that the film is not a comedy (sky blue whereas most horrors are set at night or in dark places) and it shows generally happy people