Animatic Storyboard

We have made an animated version of our storyboard, using Adobe Premier Elements. We have also added music onto this.

Animated StoryBoard

Media Animated Storyboard

View more presentations from lorajayne.

Here I have added my animated storyboard, I have added the picture and then I have explained each shot in more detail.

Possible Locations for our Film

All of these pictures are taken from the woods at the bottom of the School field.

I thought this was quite picturesque because the river in the middle of the shot gives it that little bit more of a spooky feel, as in a shot in the dark we could have some water trickling through the river and perhaps our helpless victim turns round suddenly to see if there is anyone there.

This is a drain in the middle of the woods, however it could be portrayed as a grave or a hiding place for the killer, this could be where I come out from or where Alana tries to hide when she is running away from the Killer?

This is a shot from outside of the woods, it is quite dark there even during the day so I expect it will be very dark when we film there, as we will be filming in the evening.

This is a tree we could possibly use for the ending of our film, in which there is a shot of Alana barely breathing, and she is hanging upside down from the tree, so we need to find a tree which will support her weight and support someone else in the tree who is holding Alana in place. We also need to find a tree in which Alana can easily hang from and be comfortable.

I think that this is a creepy entrance to a Woods as everything is overhanging and it is quite deciduous and has lots of different colours.

Shot List

Below is the shot list for our film, this is just a rough idea but I expect that we shall change it once we start filming.

Shot 1: This will be a long shot where the camera is on the tripod as so not to move it too much when we are filming this shot. I will be the killer in this shot so i will be moving around in the shot, although you will not see me move around. This gives the shot a nervous feel and it is quite scary.

Shot 2: This is going to be a mid-shot and hand held from the killers POV.

Shot 3: This is the scene where you see a girl being dragged out of her bed, I think for this shot we are going to use a mid shot or a long shot, which may be canted. There are going to be about 5 or 6 girls around the bonfire, I think that we will be doing this in a shot where we will be choosing either shot if we film two different shots and then we can decide which one is the best one.

Shot 4: We have decided to make this a high angle shot/crane shot, which could possibly be canted. We will also be doing it in a 2 shot, and then decide which is best.

Shot 5: This is the shot where Alana is dragged through the woodland, I think in this shot we are going to use a zoom, which will first be zoomed into Alanas face and then it will zoom out to see her being dragged by someone in a hooded cape.

Shot 6: This will be the main leader of the religious group telling them what the girls need to do to get into the group. We have decided to do this in a close up.

Shot 7: This is the shot where the Killer is trying to 'slice n dice' Alana with a knife whilst she is trying to get away, I think this is going to be a two shot so we can see both of the people in the shot, but more of the focus will be on the killer, we could use a zoom to show emphasis on the knife going into Alana.

Shot 8: Intertitle.

Shot 9: This scene is a repeat of shot 3 as we are going to film a longer shot for this and then cut the clip into two so we can use it for this shot.

Shot 10: Intertitle.

Shot 11: This is one of the most disturbing shots as this is where Alana will be hanging from the tree, I think this will be a canted angle shot so we can see her face whilst she is struggling for breath.

Shot 12: Intertitle.

Mood Board of Horror Films

As you can see below I have made 3 mood boards of Horror films, some are new releases and some are old classics, I think I have added lots of variety of horror films, but although some of them are not horror films completely they have elements of horror in them.

The first one includes films such as;

• Saw
• One Missed Call
• The Uninvited
• The Shining
• Omen
• The Last House on the Left
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose
• The Ring
• Scream
• Friday the 13th
• Shrooms
• The Exorcist
• Silence of the Lambs
• Ghost Ship
• The Strangers
• 6th Sense
• Blair Witch Project
• Carrie
• The Grudge
• And, Nightmare on Elm Street
  

The second Mood Board I made includes some older films, most of which I haven't seen, this includes:

• The Village
• Thirteen Ghosts
• Gothika
• The Haunting in Connecticut
• Christine
• An American Werewolf in London
• Pet Semetary
• Halloween
• The Crazies
• Amityville Horror
• The Eye
• It
• Wrong Turn
• [REC]
• Dawn of the Dead
• Hell Raiser
• The Orphanage
• The Fog
• Darkness Falls
• And, Texas Chainsaw Massacre

And Finally, the last mood board I made included films which are mainly new films, or films that have just been released at the cinema. These include;

• Poltergeist
• The Hills Have Eyes
• Hostel
• Mirrors
• The Unborn
• Buried
• Final Destination
• Devil
• Cube
• Hatchet
• Sleeping with the Enemy
• Trick r Treat
• Let me in
• Let the right one in
• Martyrs
• Paranormal Activity
• House of Wax

Altogether. I think I have listed nearly every horror film which I could find, I might have left out a few but I think that majority of them are there. I think that when it comes to finding a name for our film we can look back on this and see what other films we can use to give us ideas. We will also probably take elements from films to use in our film, such as in many of these horror films there are masks which indicates that people behind them don't want to be seen which could imply the hint of secrecy within the film, in our film we are going to be using masks so I think I might do a mood board of masks so I can see what type of masks are being using in the Horror Genre.

Mask Ideas, Continued

Here I have produced two mood boards with possible masks on them. The first mood board is masks in which the clan memebers could wear, and at the bottom of the mood board there are several ways in which the plain white masks have been decorated, as we had the idea of buying the plain white masks and then decorating them differently to make the members of the clans individual, this could also further identify them as following the main leader of the clan as they all have simmilar masks to hers, but the leaders will be the most intracte.
The second mood board I have made includes masks which the killer could wear, I think most of these desgins are absolutley horrible and would definatley terrify me if I saw them in a film! I think the best ones out of these are the Scream style masks, but this could been seen as copyright as it is what mask is worn in the Scream films. Again, what mask we decide to buy will depends on what type of budget we could possibley get to either hire out a mask or buy one. However, hiring a mask will be cheaper, but we might need it for longer periods of time in which we might have to hire it again, whereas if we buy the mask we can use it whenever we need to.

Mask Ideas

Today I looked at masks to use for our clan members, I looked on Ebay and a party shop near to where I live.

We have an idea to use half-masks such as this one and then add bits on to make them all individual. We will make the leader have a more intricate one than the others as she is the leader. For the Killer we might use a scream type mask or buy another type mask, we're not too sure yet. However we do need one that can cover the full face as we don't see the Killers identity until the end shot where Alana is hanging over the tree.

This is the type of mask we would use for the members of the clan as we can then add details onto it and paint the other side of people faces. The only problem with painting peoples faces is that if we have to film on another day we will have to try and get the face paint exactly the same as before to make sure the continuity flows.

Here is an example of the Scream masks used in the film Scream. We would use this because it covers the whole of the Killers face so the identity isn't revealed.

However, as this is a horror teaser trailer we would like to have a really scary mask, but we feel that we might frighten ourselves with a mask such as this. Although if we quickly flash on the mask it would probably make people jump as they are not expecting it so I think it is a good idea.

Above, is two examples of some scary masks which the Killer could wear, I think these are terrifying which would be good if we did flash on the mask and then off again.

Storyboard of Shots

In our media lesson today Hannah, Alana and myself decided on the shots that we were going to include in our Final Task. We have thought about trying to muddle up the narrative of the Film such as have some of the end shots first, and then the beginning and then the middle, so the film doesn't run consequently. We also had the idea of children chanting the lords prayer, so I will discuss what part of the lords prayer will be chanted in a clip.

Shot One
This the First shot you will see, this is a long shot of the killer in the film moving around in the shots, where actually the camera stays still and its one long shot, but the Killer moves around and changes their position, such as in front of the camera, and then in the background, then in the middle ground. I thought that a good place for this to take place would be a children's playground, where the Killer could sit on the swing, then on the see-saw and then in front of the camera etc. There is a park like this in Leatherhead, which is good because it is close to School, meaning we could take the cameras out in the day to get an idea of what to include in the shots. Also, in this shot there is a line of the Lords Prayer which we are going to chant over the top of it. This is 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven', this could link into our shot because the Killer is trying to kill people, so they are most likely to go to heaven, if they have been good, but if they have done something wrong then they are going to go to hell.

Shot 2
In this shot, there is a girl being dragged from her bed in her room whilst she is asleep, we thought that this shot would be effective because it also emphasises the stereotype that everything bad happens at night, in the dark. Also it shows the vulnerability of girls in horror films. When this girl is being dragged from her bed her hands are trying to scrabble to hold onto something, she is trying to save herself, but of course it doesn't work. To make this shot effective we should make sure the sounds of the girl desperately trying to grab onto something are emphasised, which will show the audience the fear that is going through her mind. Also to make this shot effective we could have a quick flash of her eye widening when she first gets dragged out of her bed.

Shot 3
In this shot there is a bonfire in the middle of a group of girls, who are a part of a clan, they are chanting around the bonfire, they are wearing masks which are a part of their costumes for the clan. The chant which they are chanting is another line of the Lords Prayer, which is 'And forgive us our trespassers because we trespass those who trespass against us.'

Shot 4
In this shot there is a table, probably at a school where the leaders of the clan are sitting, there are two girls who come up to the table and pass a message on a piece of paper, this says 'we want to join', meaning that they want to join the clan. I think it will be effective as it gives some of the film away but it still keeps the mystery of why the girls set up the clan in the first place a secret.

Shot 5
In this shot there is a girl being dragged through the mud, we are not sure, as the audience whether this is the killer or the leaders of the clan, but we can see the girl again furiously trying to grab onto something to prevent from being dragged away, we can see the fear on her face and in her eyes in this shot which i think will portray the shot beautifully. This shot will have to be filmed in the woods and probably in the dark as well to make it effective and scary for the audience to watch.

Shot 6
This is the 6th shot, this is the mid point in the teaser trailer, this is a mid shot of the leader of the clan saying to the possible girls who want to join the clan what they have to do in their initiation tasks. This shot would probably be shot either in the woods where they are doing the last initiation task or around the bonfire where there are girls chanting. I'm not too sure yet where we're going to film it.


Shot 7
This is a shot of the killer grabbing a girl by her legs as she also furiously tries to get to her feet to run away, the killer has a weapon in her hand which is presumably the murder weapon, the killer is going to murder all of the girls in the clan as her revenge. This shot will be filmed in the woods when the girls are completing their initiation tasks, like i said in the plot line, the girls think that it is just the girls who are in the clan following them around when it is actually the killer.


Shot 8
This shot, after the previous one will fade to black and it will be a text shot, where the the titles of the directors (us) come up and what other films we have made will also come up. I think that this shot should be a black screen with red writing and possibly have some blood splats on the screen as well to emphasise the brutality of this film.


Shot 9
This is a repeat of the third shot, which was of the girls chanting around the bonfire with masks on. this again then emphasises the serious matter in the film which is the girls dying, this also makes the audience a bit bewildered as to what is going on, I think we're just flashing this shot on, as it has already been seen. There is a bit of the Lords Prayer in this aswell, this is 'And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil', this statement could be linked with the fact that the clan are supporting evil within the devil and it could also be to do with the killer as obviously this is evil at its finest.


Shot 10
After the previous shot this will then fade to black and the title of the film will come up, again I think it should be red writing and a black background, As red connotes blood and the heart beating furiously.


Shot 11
This shot, is of a girl, the last one remaining in the clan who is alive being hung from a tree upside down, her eyes are open and she has a shocked expression on her face as to why she is upside down on a tree. There is a trickle of blood in this shot which runs down from her neck to her forehead and then drips off, this is the final shot you see of people in the trailer, and I think that this will be effective because it again shows the brutality of the film and it gives an insight into what could've happened to the other girls who are already dead. In this shot we will need to find a sturdy tree in which one of our characters can hang off comfortably, we will have to think about her being upside down for a long period of time and make sure that it's alright for her and she can maintain the same positions without her eyes flickering. I think that this shot will be effective also because there is a similar shot to this in the opening of scream, in which the blonde character is hanging from a tree, the shot is filmed from a distance away so you can see that she is suspended from the tree by her neck. To make this shot a bit different for ourselves we are going to do several shots, ones from close up and some from further away, which I think will give a good range of shots used within our film.


Shot 12
This shot is after the vicious one of the girl suspended from the tree, it is a text shot as it shows the release date. there is a part of the Lords Prayer in this as well, it says 'Forever and ever Amen.' there is then a scream after this which I think will add more to shot giving it more depth.

Possible Title Names for our Final Task

Here is a list of names which Me, Alana & Hannah thought of together for our film. We were trying to take some elements from other Horror films titles and also try and not give too much away of our own film. We also wanted to try and capture the genre of our film within the title as well.

• Reincarnation
• The Clan
• The Pact
• The Deal
• Burn in Hell
• Temptation
• Trespassers
• Kingdom of Evil
• Deliver from Evil
• Save us from Evil
• Religion
• Masked
• Stranger in the Woods
• Beaten
• Initiation
• Silent but Deadly
• Awaken
• Disturbed

I thought that most of the names were good, but I don't think we've found the right one yet, I think once we start filming and editing we will have more of an idea on what to call our film.

Rough Plot Line

In our Media Lesson today we compiled the rough plot line for our final task this year, we have decided upon a horror theme, which we thought that would be a much harder task to complete a trailer for, but in some elements it would be a good idea aswell because we can then play around the shots and angles of the camera. I think doing a horror gives us more creativity as we can experiment in getting the right consistency of blood and we can play around with using fake wounds, I think this experience will be a good one as we can let our creativity flow!


Our basic plot line at the moment is that a clan of girls created a secret organisation, which is to do with the devil and they worship him.
girls who are wishing to join must endure several initiation tasks, which get increasingly harder as you go along, the girls must survive them to get onto the next one.
The final 3 girls who survive all of the previous initiation tasks then must endure the hardest initiation task of them all, this is based in the woods at night.
The girls are kidnapped from their bedrooms and have sacks over their heads, this then prevents them from seeing who took them, as this is also done at night it makes the audience think that there is someone else involved with this clan and it is a killer who is taking them, that is why they have sacks over their heads.
In the woods, the girls who want to join the clan just think that it is them and the other girls who are already in the clan in the woods but actually the killer is there aswell and is killing them off one by one, but the girls think that it is just the girls form the clan following them around making sure they're up to being in the clan. At the end all of the clan members have been killed off, apart from one, the killer then suspends her from a tree upside down and reveals to the girl who she is. In fact the killer is a girl who wanted to join the clan but then didn't get onto it, and she has plotted her revenge to kill all of the clan members, which she succeeded in doing.

Panoramal Activity 2 trailer

Above is the trailer for Panoramal Activity two, I am going to analyse the trailer and say how it is different/similar to other trailer I have seen.

In Panoramal Activity two, the genre is the same as the first one, I would say that it is a supernatural film, and it has elements of horror and psychological thrillers in it. For example I would say that the bit in which she is standing in the door frame of the bathroom suggests that they have taken elements from other horror films to make the audience scared and the way that they have edited it using jump cuts, makes the audience not expect it, however when the dog is barking at something in the bathroom you can probably tell that something is going to happen so I would say that the film is sometimes a bit predictable. I would say that the Narrative of this film is also similar to the first one, in which at night, when the main character gets into bed a demon or a ghost possess her and she does weird things during the night, in the first film her boyfriend, Mica, decides to set up a video camera at the end of their bed to see what happens when she goes to sleep, I assume that the main girl character is waking up in weird places or things are going missing from their home which they share, so either it is because she is sleep walking or it is something else, so they decide to find out what is happening and this film is the result of that. The Unique Selling point (U.S.P) of this film is that it scares you, and it's very jumpy which also scares the audience. Another USP of this film is that there is someone posses, so this could draw interest from people who believe in that kind of thing, such as Psychics.
However, in this film there is no music over the top which suggests that it doesnt need the music to set the scene of the film or to give it a more creepy egde to already what the film is. I think that they decided not to put any music with it is because there are sound effects such as a bit of white noise every so often and there is a few sound effects such as a camera being turned on. There is people screaming in the cinema when they are watching the first one and I think that this film genuinley scared them. I think that the Target Audeince for this film would be Couples, who are over the age of 15 or 18, as I do not know what rating this film is. I'd say that men would probably come to see this film aswell.
Also, there is no dialogue and there is no voiceover for this film, which again just proves that the shots themselves are creepy enough to not need any music.
All of the shot types seem to be pretty much the same throughout the trailer, as they are in the last film, there is a mix of Long shots, where the camera is on at night and a few mid shots where the girl flashes up on screen when she seems to have just thrown her boyfriend into the camera. This also links with the Pace of the Trailer, the pace is very quick throught this trailer and I think this works effectivley with the shots, as they are all quick and fast paced, they have obviously been edited in a way that it keeps cutting back to show the scene of the dog in the babies room and the bathroom door is slightly ajar.

Yr 13 Preliminary Task

Here is our Yr 13 preliminary task. In this we wanted to achieve an eerie haunting of a school, although we filmed in the daytime I still think we achieved this. Also, filming in the daytime is not following the stereotypes of other horror films, such as in The Nightmare on Elm Street everything bad happens at night, and this wasn't the case in our film. Although you didn't see anything bad happening to anyone you just saw things being written on boards and doors closing.
I am now going to go through our film and analyse why we used each shot in our preliminary task.
The beginning shot of the whiteboard and the overhead projector mysteriously closing was a good idea because the audience get the feeling that maybe there is someone out there if things are happening mysteriously and without any explanation. However, as the film came out in bad quality you can't see what it says on the board (it says It's Time, which could connote that something is going to happen very soon) which then gives the shot no point at all, although, when we were editing our preliminary task we could see what it said on the board, I think that this is something we need to work on to make sure that our Final Task is not blurry. Another shot we could've done t maybe make the shot roll into another would be to move things around so it seems like a ghost or a spirit has a grudge on the people in the school and is moving things around to know that they are making their presence.
The next shot is one where the title of the film comes up. We chose a white type writer font as we thought it would look good, such as in The Shining, Jack Nicholson type on his typewriter in a font similar to the one that we chose for our preliminary task and he is possessed by some kind of demon, we also used this font as it is similar also to the one used in Paranormal Activity.
The shot after this is one in which we used the only person in our preliminary task, Suzi, she had a white contact in her eye and we thought this gave her a possessed look as she does not follow the conventions of a normal teenager. When we were editing this part we played around with the effects we could put on the clip and we chose one which was called 'Ghost', this is why the clip is distorted in a way in which it doesn't keep up with itself, but I think that was mainly to do with the quality of the clip when it was finished.
After this, we chose to add in a shot of white static noise, which is what you get when you turn your TV on and it hasn't gone to a channel, I thought that by adding this in it'd lengthen our clip and ti would also add to the mysteriousness of the clip aswell. We media converted a slip of static noise from Youtube and then added it onto our film, we did this a few times during our preliminary task.
Next, is a quick flash of Suzi's creepy eye, which I thought gave a good effect as you see the flash but you don't see it, if you understand what I mean, you subconsciously take the flash in but you might need to watch it more than once to see it properly.
After this again we have some more static noise, which again makes the task seem more mysterious and strange.
After a shot of Suzi's eye again we a get a text shot of 'The Lessons Begun' in the same font in which we did the title in, we decided to have this because like, in Saw for example it has a motto 'I want to play a game' so in ours the slogan for this would be that the lessons have begun, as this is set in a school and we thought that it would fit with the theme of our task.
After this shot the release date is shown on the screen, we thought this would be a good idea because it follows the conventions of a teaser trailer, as it doesn't give too much of the film away yet it shows what we briefly be going on in the film. I thought our use of the canted angle shot of 'Mathematics at Therfield School' was a good idea because that then finalised that something was going to happen at the school, be it in the morning or at night. After this there is more static noise which fades out at the end.

We decided again to use Working Title to produce our film because we felt that it is short and doesn't take too much up time into our clip, this is what we used last year so this also contributes to the continuity of our tasks throughout the years.

At the beginning over the shot of the working title opening sequence we had a high pitched screeching noise, we chose this because we thought that it would add mroe of an eerie edge to the clip and we could then say that it could be the 'ghost or possessed' person trying to talk to the audience. After the opening sequence has ended we have a heartbeat which continues to get faster as the clip goes on, this could either demonstrate the heart rate of the audience watching the film as a media studient I find that the music is what makes my heart rate go up and the tension of the shot makers you anticipate what is going to happen next.

Some of the things that I would change about this task if I were to do it again would be to make sure that what was written on the board could be seen so perhaps write it in a darker pen and make it stand out more by making it bolder on the board and I would also play around a bit more with the quality of our final product to make sure that to the audience it is clear as you wouldn't go to the cinema to see a bad quality film.

Analysing Teaser Trailers

Today in media we analysed two horror movie trailers. These were the two Nightmare on Elm Street trailers, one for the 1984 film and the newer one which was made in 2008 and released in 2009.
For each Trailer we wrote notes on each section, these were the following: Genre, Narrative, Representation, Audience & Media Language.

For the 2009 trailer I put this into those categories
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Narrative: 'If you fall asleep you die' Freddie wants revenge?
Representation: Freddie; Bad guy, hat, claws & he is always in the dark and his face is never seen in the trailer.
Audience: Adults, people who are 18+
Media Language: In both the films there are scenes featuring: Girls in white skipping (the white could has connotations of purity and innocence. Someone saying 'Don't fall asleep'. A girl levitating off a bed & the bath scene.

Below is the trailer for the 2009 Nightmare on Elm Street


For the 1984 trailer I put this into the categories
Genre: Horror
Narrative: Girl has to save the day
Audience: 18+
Representation: Freddie is bald and burnt?
Media Language: Same as before

Below is the trailer for the 1984 Nightmare on Elm Street film.

Mindmap of Genre

Today Hannah and I created this mind map of ideas for our Teaser Trailer. We decided to explore different genres which we thought would be easy for us to create a teaser trailer in. We also thought that most of these genres also fit into the Horror genre, so we decided to put some films into which genre we thought they'd go into. We also put in subcultures as within many of these genres there is sub genres.

We decided on these genres: Horror, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Action/Adventure & Science Fiction, in each genres there is a sub-genre except for psychological thriller which we thought was pretty self-explanatory, in each sub genre we listed films in which we thought would come under those genres.

Into the Horror Genre I put Hand Held camera, into which we put these following films; Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield & Panoramal Activity. Into Gore went these films; Saw, Hostel & Sleepy Hollow, and in Mass Murder we put these films; Scream, Saw, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. Hannah and I thought that these films all kind of went into one genre, which was Horror but they all have their different elements which makes them different from each other.

In the Thriller genre we put Crime and Dark & Mysterious, in the Crime genre we put these films; Don't say a word & Die Hard. In the Dark and Mysterious genre we put these films; The Grudge & The Ring. However each of the films we put into these genres could probably fit into the horror genre aswell.

In the Psychological Thriller genre we put these films; Shutter Island, Mind Hunters, The Shining, American Psycho, Silence of the Lambs & Inception. We decided that there wasn't really any sub genres to psychological thrillers as they all mess with your head. We thought that these were the best films for us to put into this genre.

In the Science Fiction genre we had two sub genres, Aliens & Supernatural. In the Aliens genre we put these films; The Alien Franchise, E.T, Signs and Predator. In the Supernatural genre we put these films; The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Unborn, The Others & Panoramal Activity. However I think that, as a group we've decided to not do Science Fiction because it will be too hard for us to complete within the time limit we've got. Also to make a Sci-Fi character is too advanced for us to do on the editing software in which we have.

And, Finally in the Action/Adventure genre we had the two sub genres, Action and Adventure. In the Action genre we put the following films; The Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Indiana Jones, Inception and James Bond. In the Adventure genre we put these films; Pirates of the Caribbean, James Bond, King Kong and Jurassic Park.

So, overall I think we're going to go down the Horror/Psychological Thriller route for our film this year, I am pleased with our decision because it is completely different from our decision last year, in which we chose Chick Flick, this time we can use different camera angles and play around with the music, lighting and time of day.

Analysing Blair Witch Project

I think that this trailer is very different to others because it only has one clip of footage from the film, I think it is quite effective however as it doesnt give much away from the film itself which would intregue the audience to go and see it. So in that aspect it follows the conventions of a teaser trailer.
The producers of this film have done a good job in not giving away lots about the film. There is a shot at the beginning in which there is text about how some students went into the woods to investigate the blair witch, however they don't seem to come out of the woods ever and their footage is found. I havn't seen the Blair Witch Project so I dont know what it is about entirely but I have a brief idea. I dont understand, however in the next 15 seconds or so why it is black, I think it is effective however as then again it doesnt give any of the film away.

The mise en scene of this is minimal as you only see one clip from the film and you can only see her face, however the lighting is

What we did in Todays Media lesson

In today's media lesson we edited what we have of our film and played around with the effects that we could use on adobe. We settled on using 'ghost' on a clip of Suzi because it looked good and gave a eerie edge to the clip. We also used 'outline' to outline some of the clips to make them sharper and edgier. We looked on Freeplay Music to see what music we could find to go with our teaser trailer. We also looked on YouTube because we wanted to find a clip of White noise (static) from a television because we thought that it would add to the eerie sense of the teaser trailer, to do this we converted it on the a media converter and dragged it into adobe and then dragged it onto the parts of the clip where we wanted the white noise to be. We only used a few seconds of it, so like a subliminal flash, so you think you see something but your brain doesn't process it until it has gone.

We showed our friend Milly, because she gets scared easily and we wanted to know if it scared her or not, it did and she was very creeped out by the fact that Suzi had a contact lens in her eye and it gave connotations of a weirdo, someone who isn't quite all there, I get connotations of someone such as Jekyll from Mr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, as he has a split personality, such as Suzi might've done in this clip.

In our next media lesson we will be adding music and finding the final elements to the clip to make it finished and 'scary.'

Outside of a Circle Teaser Trailer.

Today in Media we were given a made-up film synopsis and Miss Martin asked us to produce a teaser trailer for it, this was much harder as with the Up film many people had seen it, or had heard about it so they had a rough idea on what happens within the film.
The basic plot for the film is that a man is an undercover police officer and he gets involved with a mafia based gang and it all goes wrong. So from what we were given I made the following trailer for this film.
We were given the name of the film - Outside of a Circle.

Shot one: A long shot of a car and someone sitting inside it and beyond that is a typical city sky scraper building with lots of windows and a small door at the bottom. Near the small door at the bottom there are two mysterious figures looking around to make sure that there is no one watching them.
-Dialogue: None
Shot two: An over the shoulder shot of the Police Officer looking at the building where there is a mysterious figure going into it.
-Dialogue: The Undercover Police Officer says 'Hmmm'
Shot three: A long shot of five people sitting around a long rectangular table, there is a man at the end, who is presumbably the 'Boss'. He is making a statment and all of the other people are nodding and agreeing with what he says.
-Dialogue: The 'Boss' is saying 'We need to get rid of him', the other people who are around the table are saying 'Yeah' and 'Yes, Boss'
Shot four: A long shot of the sky scraper outside with the 'Mob' men looking at the undercover cop who is in his car. They walk over to him and he realises too late that they have sussed him out.
-Dialogue: The undercover cop saying 'aaaah!'
Shot five: A mid shot of the Mafia gang going to get the undercover cop out of his car, they drag him out and his hat falls off. In the background you can see the bottom of the sky scrapers wtih a few lights on.
-Dialogue: None
Shot six: A bit of blood dripping down from the previous screen and there is text saying 'From the Makers of...'
-Dialogue: 'From the makers of...'
Shot seven: Blood from the previous screen again and then text saying 'Goodfellas and Rock & Rolla'
-Dialogue: 'Goodfellas and Rock & Rolla'
Shot eight: There is a white flash and then blood drips down again from the previous shot and says the name of the film 'Outside of a Circle' and in red writing it says 'Autmn 2011'
-Dialogue: None

Obviously there is no Teaser Trailer for us to compare this to, but I thought that my Teaser Trailer was quite good. The only thing I thought I didn't do very well was use the acutal conventions of a teaser trailer, I thought that this wasn't very well thought out as it gave quite a lot of information away about the film. And it was in sequence, but I find it hard to do that as it doesn't feel right! However I thought that I included quite a lot of the list, such as the name of the film, the sense of the genre, the release date and it was also less than a minute. I think that the target audience for this film would be men, aged between 15 - 30.

Up Teaser Trailer

In class today we were asked to make a teaser trailer for up on our own, without having previously seen the trailer.
We were given a brief outline of what the film was about and who directed it & who it was made by.
We storyboarded what we thought they might've included in the teaser trailer.
Here is a list of what I chose to include in mine:

Shot one: A mid-shot, with the 'Disney pixar' logo and balloons flying around as I knew that the film was based on Balloons although I have not seen it.
-Dialougue: 'Disneys Pixar Presents...'
Shot two: A long shot of the front of Carl Fredericksons house, the main character in the film.
-Dialogue: 'Mr Carl Frederickson & his...'
Shot three: A long shot of Carls' flying house, with balloons attached out of the chimney and at the side of the house. There are clouds behind the house to show that it is in the air.
-Dialogue: 'Flying House'
Shot four: A two shot of Mr Carl Frederickson & the little boy that accompanies him on his journey which he meets along the way.
-Dialogue: 'On his encounters he meets.. Russell
Shot five: A close up shot of Russel, being very smiley and happy.
-Dialogue: 'An over excitable 8 year old wilderness explorer & his dog.'
Shot six: A mid shot of '3D' writing in 3D and 'in selected theatres'
-Dialogue: 'In Disney's 3D in selected Theatres'
Shot seven: Writing of 'Directed by Pete Docter, director of Monsters Inc'
-Dialogue: 'Directed by Pete Docter, Director of Monsters Inc'

I have included the actual clip of the Up teaser trailer I can compare it to the one that I thought would be what the trailer was.



As you can see from the clip above I did get the balloon bit correct but it doesn't have the Pixar bit. I think that this is an effective trailer because it doesnt give too much of the film away but you can still assume what the film is about.

Media Lesson

In a previous Media lesson we got told what we had to do for our Preliminary task, we had to film some of the school but Miss Martin left the genre and length down to us. She said that it should be less than a minute long though. So we decided to make this a horror / thriller task, which is completley different to what we had to do last year, although we had some aspects of something eerie going on in our previous one with the door shutting on it's own. In today's Media lesson we filmed our scenes for the Teaser Trailer. We used a Camcorder & a Tripod, although most of this was hand held work. We got our friend Suzi to help us out as today she wore a creepy contact lens to school. The basic plot for our Teaser Trailer is that Therfield School is haunted by a mysterious figure, and they go round writing disturbing things on peoples whiteboards and throwing paper around to make people think that there is a 'ghost'.

Super 8 Teaser Trailer

Here is the teaser trailer for Super 8. The trailer doesn't show anyone being cast in the movie, nor does it have anyone names in the credits within the clip, all it shows it a truck skipping the crossing of a train and then driving towards the train causing it to crash. All the clip gives away is that it is in area 51, an area renound for aliens and supernatural incidents. I think that this movie will be good because the teaser trailer is quick and fast paced, the music goes with it aswell, it builds suspense to when the truck crashes into the front of the train. As tease trailers go, tis one is quite long, with it being 1 minute and 30 seconds long, however it doesnt have lots of detail within it, so I think this really shows us, as media students what kind of length & detail we can go into when we are producing our teaser trailers. When we do come produce our teaser trailers we will have to have a think about what kind of shots we can use in the clip, as we will play around with them as much as we can. In this teaser trailer there is a total of 23 different shots, all showing us the action of the scene. this gives us a good idea on how many we can include in our teaser trailer. The shots, on average are about 3 seconds long each, which shows us that we can have over 10 shots in our teaser trailer for it to still be good, we dont need to have time lengthly shots for our trailer to be good. The trailer plays around with the angles of the shots and it jumps around quite a bit, from the shots to showing us who directed the film. At 34-35 seconds the shots jumps from the truck & the train colliding with one another to the shot of who directs the film. I think this is effective because it cuts into the middle of the action and you are left to read who directed it. Steven Spielberg, has directed lots of films and we know from them that one is going to action packed and will probably have cost a lot of money which should, in theory make it a must-see!

Investigating film releases

For Homework tonight we were asked to look at recent or up and coming film trailers. Using 4 of the features from the previous post we studied what the main features of the film were.
I chose 5 films which are coming out soon at the cinema.

Buried
Genre - Horror / Thriller
Unique Selling Point - Man in coffin draws you in, because you are intrigued on what is going to happen to him. This keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Target Audience (Gender, Age etc) - Men, in their early 20s. Young Couples.
UK release date - 1st October 2010

Vampires Suck
Genre - Comedy
Unique Selling Point - a parody of Twilight
Target Audience (Gender, Age etc) - Teenagers, people who like/hate/love Twilight.
UK Release Date - 15th October 2010

Life as we know it
Genre - Comedy
Unique Selling Point - 'aah' factor.
Target Audience (Gender, Age etc) - Teenage girls, Girls in General
UK release date - 8th October 2010

Takers
Genre - Action
Unique Selling Point - Cars, Hot women, Gangsters etc
Target Audience (Gender, Age etc) - Men, early 20s
UK release date - 1st October 2010

Devil
Genre - Thriller
Unique Selling Point - Chilling, Keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Target Audience (Gender, Age etc) - Men/Woman/Couples. 15+
UK release date - 17th October 2010

Analysing a Trailer.

Today in our first media lesson we looked at how to analyse a trailer; we looked at the features of a trailer, we used the following headings for the features:
Genre, Narrative, Unique Selling Point, Target Audience, Music, Shot Types/Camera Angles, Pace, Dialogue, Voice over, Special Effects & Credits and Inter titles.

We decided to analyse the 2012 Trailer, here is what I wrote for the following categories:
Genre: Adventure, Action & Sci-fi.
Narrative: End of World, Fight for your life.
Unique Selling Point: The amount of special effects.
Target Audience: People who enjoy Sci-Fi films, people who liked War of the Worlds, Independence Day & The Day after Tomorrow.
Music: Inquisitive at the beginning, dramatic, Rock. Makes it seem Epic.
Shot types/Camera angles: Long shots, Birds eye view, Canted angles
Pace: Quick paced, action. Slow at the beginning of the trailer. There is a 'Surge of Action' and then a 'Release'
Dialogue: There isn't much Dialogue. There is a comedy bit where a Dad says to his Daughter 'What are the Odds?' The only dialogue there is, is when it is necessary. The news reader repeats 'this year' a few times, it homes in on how close it is to the end of the world.
Voiceover: Man reading the news over a few shots.
Special Effects: There are lots of special effects, they obviously havn't cut corners on teh amount of them. There are waves destroying everything, Buildings crashing & CGI.
Credits and Intertitles: The intertitles give brief details about when the film is released and how the end is only the beginning. Appocalyptic films.

Conventions of a Teaser Trailer

Here are the conventions of a teaser trailer which we compiled as a class:

-Not much information is given away in a teaser trailer
-Name of the Film
-Sense of its Genre
-Release Date
-Generally is less than a minute long
-Target audience, usually from the teaser trailer you can tell what the target audience is.
-Non sequential, it takes things out of order.

AS Coursework Reflection

I was asked to reflect on my AS coursework. I used the following Titles to write down what I used last year and what I used them for.

Digital Media:
- Computer Based Media
Adobe Photoshop, was used for editing the photo of our Queen B's
Adobe Premier Elements, was used for editing and making the final changes to our opening 2 minutes of a film.
Freeplay Music, was used for finding music to fit with our film.
Blogger, was used to blog what we did every day for our media course
Youtube, was used to look at clips from films with a similar genre
Media Convertor, was used to covnert a clip of working titles logo so we could add it onto our movie.
- Components used for actually filming our film.
Camcorder, used to capture the film
Microphone, used to capture sound that the camcorder didn't pick up
Tripod, used to stabalise the camera so it wouldn't move around and be shaky during a shot
Digital Camera, used for the photo of our Queen Bees and used in the evaluation tasks

Creativity
We followed the stereotype for our chick-flick, however to make it different we used still images at the end to show the transformation.

Research and Planning
To plan our film we watched lots of chick-flick trailers on youtube and used storyboards to plan what we were going to include in our film. We redrafted the final storyboard to make sure it fitted in with our film.
For our ancillary task we used the 360 rule and the over the shoulder shot.

Post Production
We recieved good feedback for our film, we didn't recieve any bad feedback.

Evaluation
We used Youtube, for us to upload our video and people to comment on it, of what they thought about it and what we could've improved on.
We got a list of 7 evaluation tasks to complete and we used shots from both our preliminary task and our main tasks to compare them to see what we had learned.
We used Google to find pictures of other similar characters in the Chick-Flick genre to compare our characters to.
We used a digital camera to take pictures of us standing by the equipment that we used to say what we've learned from it and how it helped us to finalise the clip.

The link to our Yr 12 Blog

http://hannahlauraalana.blogspot.com/