PLAN FOR TODAY

WHERE I AM AT:

Need to start poster and magazine

have done some filming but still need to shoot a few scenes

need to find music

PERIOD 1: Begin Magazine or Poster cover

PERIOD 2: shoot close up shots for mag front cover and poster

PERIOD 3:Edit

PERIOD 4:Edit

PERIOD 5: film or edit

ROUGH CUT:

Testing Fonts

I downloaded some Blood Spatter effect which creates a much more realist style

I created a blood spattered text to maybe use on my poster. However it looks slightly cheesy/corny rather than creepy and scary.
I used this website tutorial: http://tutorialcenter.blogspot.com/2007/12/creating-blood-text.html

Name Ideas

*Schools Out
*The School
*Classroom
*Disappearance
*Alone in the School
*Educate
*Education

Filming

Magazine front Cover so far

 

Edited Sarah's script

20 years ago three teenagers were brutally murdered here. No one knows who did it and no one knows why.
Over the years claims of supernatural experiences have been made by both teachers and students at Burntwood School.

Tonight in the interest of the truth, sanity and an A in media Natalie, Niomi and i will spend the night unsupervised, unprotected and completely alone in the school. Our resulting documentary should answer the question whether this building creaks with age or with pain.

Edited Scream

I wanted to have a close up of one of the actors screaming. This shot is a typical convention of the horror trailer genre used to suggest fear and terror. However when i filmed it i found the shot just on its own lacks that effect I'm trying to present. Therefore i practiced adding effects to the clips to make it more tense and frightening. 

Filming troubles

I came across a few difficulties while filming last week.

1. I attempted to film a head shot of a character screaming however when reviewing the footage they looked more like angry screams then the scared look i was going for. To solve this when i film this shot again i am going to demonstrate to my actor how i want it to look as well as explain the situation of the scene better so they feel they can get into character quicker.
2. Filming in the dark makes creates a grainy, out of focus effect and it is to dark to see what is happening clearly. However i am going to film with the lights on and edited the lighting afterwards on imovie changing the brightness.
3. People keep walking in and out when i am trying to film in areas such as the toilets. I might put a sign on the door to ask the girls to use the other toilet down the hall.
4. I found it hard to work out what shoot to do due to lack of actors or situations making difficult to film. i also felt i was being a little unorganised. To solve this i am going to create plans for the day i am filming to be more prepared for shooting

Parnormal Activity Trailer

The techniques used in this trailer is very effective in targeting an audience. First of all it is shot from the audience in a cinema point of view. By watching the audiences reactions as they hide and are shocked it suggests to us that the film is exciting, terrifying and worth watching. We can see what is happening in the trailer as well and with the audience's reactions of screaming create as sense of suspense and terror. Using a hand-held camera conveys the sense of realism the film is trying to achieve and illustrates that they are completely alone which is what i am trying to portray in my trailer. This alternate way of filming is becoming more popular films such as 2009 District 9 were released and filmed in the same manner. The more popular they become with a mass audience the more they go from being mainly independent productions to quite mainstream films. This means that they may have more production values and budget and could change the whole aesthetics of the hand-held camera realism films. The trailer relies on the audiences primal fears, the sense that something is there in your home but you do not know what. Shots of the doors banging open and close suggest a present. The trailer adheres to the conventions of a trailer as the cuts if the shots quicken and speed up towards the end of the trailer to create a tension and suspense.

Set back!!!

One of my actors has now left school meaning the footage i shot last Friday i can not use as she is no longer available! On Monday i did not get to shoot anything as i was one actor down and have to find a replacement as well as i lost my phone and had to spend the whole filming time looking for it. It was very disorganised and chaotic and by the end of this week i want to arrange another filming schedule and i have already found a replacement actor.

Script

Script ideas for the inteview shots.

20 years ago three teenagers were brutally murdered here at Burntwood secondary school. No one knows who did it and no one knows why.
Over the years teachers and students have claimed to have had supernatural experiences within the school tonight me and two members of my media class will spend the night in the school unprotected unsupervised and completely alone.
What will we discover, is it just an old creaky building, is the school haunted by the mysteriously murdered teenagers or does the killer still linger within these walls.

Weekly Plan

filming

On Friday i shot a a close up scream of on of my characters screaming. Due to bad weather i could not do any of the outside shots i planned to do as well as actors being late meant i only could really get that one shot done. i planned to do more filming after school today but that depends on the weather and punctuality of my actors.

Weekly Plan

photoshop workshop 3

For my Poster i have changed my idea slightly to include the three main characters. The background will be a long shot of a hallway which connotes school by the lockers and layout. I want light coming from the door and then getting darker towards the foreground. There will be a close up of one of the characters in front while the other two are standing behind down the hallway in the light. Today i played with the lighting to create the light to dark effect. This represents the idea of going into something evil.
Method:
* add layer
* use paintbrush tool to darken the image
*add a gradient going from white to black to create the finished effect

Location Shots

The girls toilets:
It is an effective location i like the layout of the toilets the symmetrical lanes of aisles. the two mirrors at the end suggest someone is watching. Hitchcock used circles as a motif for eyes to create the sense of being watched(image from Hitchcock's Psycho).

Close up looking down the stairs: This shot would suggest something is chasing them up the stairs. i like the winding effect of the banisters. Low angle shot looking up the stairs: A low angle shot of the characters running up the stairs suggest they have a long way to go, the idea that up going up means there is no escaping. They are heading into danger.
Locker shot: The mise-en-scene represents the school environment.

Weekly Planning

Mock ups

Magazine Front Cover

Poster

Storyboards

Photoshop workshop 2

This lesson we were shown how to darken and highlight areas of an image. This is my starting image it is again shot at day so is too bright and not scary.
Instructions:
*click Layer and then new Layer
*change mode to Overlay
*tick box to fill with overlay-neutral colour 950% grey)
* pick paintbrush tool (hardness 0%) (opacity to 10%) depending on how dark or light you want it
*change colour to white to highlight of black to darken. different colours intensify and have different effects.
*Working on an overlay doesn't effect the image.
I darkened the background 60% however i wanted her to stand out against the background so lightened her 10%

The sky was still to light so i went to: *Adjustments
*shadows and highlights
This just adds to the shadows and adds contracts to the highlights.
*image adjustments
*hue/saturation
*adjust the Saturation this will bring it down to lessen the intense colour and make it less intense.
I was inspired by one of the posters i looked at for the Blair Witch Project. The image was inverted which created a very dramatic night image. to create an inverted image i had to use my original image and go to:
*adjustments
*image invert
I had to use my original image as the one i had edited to be darker when i inverted it the dark background would become light and i want the background to be darker.
However if i want to invert my final image, i will have to plan carefully what areas i want to be dark and which areas i want to be lighter.

Teaser Trailer Sequencing

*Institution: production and distribution company
*Text
*Possibly critic comments
*Establishing characters
*Cuts of narrative
*Climax }Tense music
*Cliff hanger or suspense ending

HORROR GENRE

Horror And Theory

This is a presentation i found while researching the horror genre, it talks about different horror theories as well as some conventions of horror. i found it quite useful and it gave me another prospective to think about concerning the horror genre

Photoshop workshop

BEFORE:
- It is in colour
-Taken at mid-day when it was really sunny
-Very bright
-It is not frightening or conveying any of the horror conventions for a poster.



Today we had our second Photoshop lesson, this was to help us get use to some of the features of Photoshop. We used photos we took yesterday to practice on. The photo i used reflects the extreme close-up i wish to produce for my poster.

AFTER:
-I added a Black to transparent circular gradient to make around the face black. This blocked out the hair and focused the eye on to the face.
-Then i change the colour image to a black and white one
-I played around with the light balance to create the inverted night time effect
-Then i added a Conte Crayon filter to create a grainy effect.
Overall this image conveys a sense of horror now compared to how it looked before!

Close-up Posters

Treatment

20 years ago five teenagers were found brutally murdered at the local secondary school, Burntwood. No one knows who did it it and no one knows why.

In 2009 A group of friends decide to go back to school after hours, to invested claims that the five teenagers killed never really left the building. In the darkness of the empty corridors and deserted classrooms what started of as a group of students recording there media project turned into a frenzy of killings. Throughout the night one by one the students begin to disappear as the others try to stay together and find their missing friends. The night of terror ends when day breaks and the daily routine of the school returns to normality.

Final Brief

Product: FILM PROMOTION- teaser trailer, a film magazine front cover and poster for film

Genre: Horror, teen-slasher, suspense

Target audience: 15-24 (with a 15 rating) disposable income, young male and female. Also an audience looking for a different style of horror.

Similar media products: Friday the 13, Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Quarantine

Justification of choice of brief: Horror films are extremely popular, with the advantages in technology the horror genre has become more realistic, with sleek graphics and special effects. I want to return to the basic conventions, terrifying killer, screaming teenagers and heart racing suspense.

Representation Issues: Using real teenagers to convey a sense of realism for the audience as well as providing a effective and frighting killer.

Narrative: From looking at trailers for films portraying the narrative in a documentary style, such as the Blair Witch Project and Quarantine. My production will use the same technique.I will use a non-linear narrative as this is a typical convention of a teaser trailer, i will use segments and cuts of my narrative to appeal to the audiences curiosity. I have decided to adhere to the convention of a non-linear narrative as it is an effective aspect of a teaser trailer so there is no need to change this method as it captures the audience attention well.

Creativity: My research has mainly revolved around looking at films that use a hand-held camera to present there narrative, I want to portray my narrative in a similar way. These type of films rely on the sense of truth, and has a detailed advertising campaign to further enhance the idea that the film is reality. I want to link my poster, magazine cover and teaser trailer to convey a sense of realism to the audience as if the event really occurred.

Challenges anticipated: Filming - Capturing a realist style of filming, and making the narrative clear. Actors - Good at improvising the event to make it seem mote real. Editing - using a mix of quick cuts and short cuts, portraying the sense of danger and fear using transitions and making it look like a hand-held film.

Digital technology: I will use the Internet for my promotional campaign, placing my teaser trailer on networking websites and having its own promotional website. The Internet is an effective way of reaching your target audiences as well as a wide audiences, especially if the production is more independent and has less funds, it can reach the audience it needs.

Classification

Quarantine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUw2zNR5Dzc
(click To view Trailer)

Empire: Film Cover Analysis

• Dominate image of the the main character. It is a head ands shoulder shot and he is gripping his hands together. This is to show the contrast between his normal human hand and wot appears to be an over sized, stone robotic hand.
• The purpose of having the main character or actor on the front cover is to promote the film. Hellboy 2 is a sequel and the comic genre. Usually with the comic genre the character is shown on the front cover rather than the actors as the character may be in costume and the film might be better known for the characters rather than the actors.
• the cover is not presenting a horror film however it coveys some horror conventions. The use of the edited flames on the title suggest death and hell which are commonly connected with the idea of horror.
• The black and red theme is sinister and dark which connotes evil and hell
• It is ironic as he has pray beads around his wrist as he is meant to be like a devil.
  
• There are teasers and plugs down the left hand side of the cover and the title of the the film is at the bottom of the page the same colour.
• Empire is a mainstream and well known film magazine, it would be an effective way to promote my production along side my teaser trailer and poster. Film magazines are targeted at people who are demographically interested in films, so is a good marketing method as it creates awareness to an interested audience.
• Also magazines such as Empire are distributed across the UK and are even produced globally meaning a production can react a wide audience

• The Dark Knight issue for Empire is very successful. I came across these two cover while trying to research film magazines with a horror genre. This two covers might not be for the horror genre but the promotional strategy is very fascinating.
  

There is two different main images for the same issue of the magazine. They have the same identical tags, teasers and information just the character is different. One is Batman and the other is the Joker. The Batman cover is blue and black to represent the night, as bats only come out at night.

The theme for the Joker's cover is green and black his appearance is more sinister. He is meant to symbolise and evil clown. The two covers are to promote the battle against good and evil. This is demonstrated by using the two main characters the villein and the hero. when i produce my film magazine front cover i could use two images one of the victim and the other of the villein.

Blair Witch Project Posters

Promotional campaign

Haxan Films is a production company, it was founded by five graduates of the university of central Florida Film Program. It is well known for producing independent classic cult horror films most famously The Blair Witch Project. This institution would be a good one to produce my horror film as although they are a small independent company they had a very successful marketing campaign which resulted in the small film The Blair Witch Project becoming a international hit.

They are also linked to the company Artisan Entertainment which use to be a private American Movie studio. However it was bought by Lionsgate in 2003. Being attached to a large production and distribution campaign such as Lionsgate would be good for my production piece. This is because it would be produced by an independent company but still have the benefits of being with a larger company such as more funds for the promotional and distribution campaigns.
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THE WEBSITE:
http://www.blairwitch.com/
The website opens on a clip of the main girl in her home. The film is all about sustaining the element of truth for the audience so even in the website keep up the idea of realism.

The homepage contains four links headed Mythology, The Film makes, The Aftermath and The legacy. These topics further enhance the viewers knowledge of the events that happened in the film and continues to portray the film as a true story.This is a print screen of a one of the web pages displaying pictures of the "found footage"


There is also interviews with the parents of the lost teenagers, the promotional campaign is really successful as it focuses on every detail of the characters lives, before during and even what happen after they went missing. They build up a whole picture of the characters to make the film more believable and as realist as possible. There is also not real inforamtion about filming, the plot or the actors information on the website.
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THE CAST
The filmmakers used unknown actors and actresses and they had to have high improvisational skills as the diolog was going to be improvised. They even used some the the acters real names to adhere to the sense of realism. They also used many of the townspeople in the interviews who were not actors when they were shooting who claimed to know about the Blair Witch.
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FILMING
IT was shot over eight days in the forest the main character hardly had any camera training with enhanced the shaky effect of the filming. They were given clues to their next location in milk bottles, given individual instructions to shape the narrative and also rationed on food. This is why the film is so realist as the actors where not really acting, it was their real reactions and they really were scared.

The Blair Witch Project from the way it was produces to it promotional campaign is all about creating a realist event for the viewer and that is why it is one of the most successful campaigns as it goes into greatdetail.

The Blair Witch Project Trailer

The text at the beginning is set out like a documentary; real dates and locations make it appear like true events.

Set at night which creates a mysterious and sinister atmosphere

Quick cuts of people scared and the dark forest increases tension

Shaky camera represents a hand held production, helps to create a sense that the people filming are completely alone as it makes it realistic and gives it that independant feel.

The music is truly terrifying as ti sounds ghostly and haunting; the high pitched screams have the 'hairs on the back of your neck standing up' effect.


The teaser trailer appeals to the viewers primal fears and makes them curious to the unusual filming technique and narritve.

Comparing Friday the 13th trailer