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.