EvaluationBy Tim Ogden

1. Conventions

This shot has been adjusted so it is much whiter and over exposed. This is used to signify violence in the trailer, and make it appear more stark compared to the other shots. This is a convention of horror film trailers as violence isn’t allowed to be shown on public TV. It also makes the film more appealing as it can make it harder to discern what is actually happening during the moment of violence. Trailers such as Sorority Row and Saw implement this method. In hindsight, a black and white extreme high contrast should have been implemented to make the violence appear more shocking, which would be more enticing for a potential viewer. It is also very clear from this snapshot what it going on, something which would degrade the overall effectiveness of the trailer as it defeats the concept of horror and doesn’t necessarily follow the conventions of a horror film trailer to show violence.

The location for filming was carefully chosen to ensure that it would give the trailer an organic look which could be related to. Horror films nearly always take place in secluded environments so that help is far away, and so that the incident is relatively confined. The lighting was also a key factor. It was bright enough to be able to provide clear film, but dark enough so that it could be made to appear scarier and that the overall impression given was not of a bright sunny day, which would not be suitable for the horror genre theme.

This location was considered but ultimately rejected as it had to much natural light and not enough space to run around, neither of which would be suitable to match the conventions of the horror film genre.

There are several edited in screens with text to give a better idea of what is happening and/or what the film is about. This is a conventional theme in film trailers of all kinds in place or with an audio narrative. This gives a better understanding of what the film will be about. This is more appropriate for a teaser trailer and horror film than an audio narrative, which would remove the scary aspect of it.

Fade to white, and fade to black were both used in the trailer. This is a conventional way of cutting to new scenes in a film trailer, and almost acts like a time lapse to give a wider scope of what the film will be about, rather than showing 30 seconds of the opening scene, which wouldn’t exactly entice people. Above you can see two consecutive snapshots showing a scene which faded to white. For that particular scene white was used as it matched the colour of the scene better than black.

Colour correction was used in every shot of the trailer as the stock colour of the film wasn’t suitable for the theme of the trailer(horror film) as it contained to much colour, and the colour was to dense. The above shot is the original, and the below one is the edited one. Colour correction is conventional in nearly all films and in horror films it is often used to create a scarier, more surreal location or one which lacks the brighter colours associated with security and happiness.

In my magazine I used several conventions which are common in magazines. For example, I made sure that the text was behind the head of the main image. This was done to create a professional looking cover, which is obviously conventional and required for any successful media. The main cover story is situated in the centre-bottom of the cover and uses larger text than the rest of the page. This is conventional as it follows the root of the eye and attracts the reader to the main story of the magazine. Symmetrical composition is used for the main image as it suggests that the person is key to the issue. The cover lines are arranged on each side of the central image to ensure symmetry and to fit into the root of the eye path. They are also arranged to as to cover as little of the actors face as possible.

The poster uses a large title situated at the top of the poster, which is relatively conventional for a film poster. It also has a large main image which more or less covers the entire poster. The picture is a black and white one, as this gives some idea of the film but leaves a lot in mystery, as many of the details are hidden in the darkness. The darkness itself is conventional of horror films and posters as it connotes fear and the unknown. The slogan is in red with a white backing as red connotes violence, which helps connote what the film is about. It is typical of the horror film genre to feature red in some form on a poster to subtlety suggest violence. The image is of a person wearing a hooded top standing in front of some light in the trees. This suggests the person in the image is the main bad character of the film, but subtlety. There are woods surrounding the person which gives an idea of the location and connotes mystery and fear as secluded locations are typical in the horror genre. As is conventional, the cinema release date is below the production text which is common with all genre of films.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?Research:During my research I used Wall Wisher to do Audience Research on the trailer I was reviewing, which made it much easier and faster to get accurate opinions and views on the trailer compared to doing it by hand. It also made it possible to share the page to get more results and embed the YouTube clip. Using this website allowed my target audience to give me on going feedback during the production of my trailer, which allowed me to better shape it based on a general consensus as to what looked good, and what did not. This outside opinion allowed a better perspective of my trailer, and therefore helped to produce a better product. I also used YouTube to find appropriate film trailers to review for my genre.

Planning: During my planning I constructed an animatic, which was scanned in and edited into a sequence with music in iMovie. This allowed me to produce a relatively accurate representation of what the scenes would be like, compared to a large poster of the animatic drawings, which would not provide and sense of flow. I also used a still camera to obtain shots of potential locations for the filming during the planning process. This allowed me to show them and discuss the locations with other members of the team. This gave me a better idea of where I would be able to shoot from, and the space that was available. The animatic was also used to show outside viewers roughly what the trailer would be like, which allowed me to get back some useful feedback, such as the arrangement of characters in a shot to show which characters were more important and dominant.

Production:During the production of my trailer I used a digital film camera to capture the scenes. I then edited the scenes in iMovie. iMovie was useful as it allowed to me to perfectly cut the scenes together and add effective transitions to the trailer. On all of my shots I added a filter which adjusted the Exposure, Contrast, Brightness and Saturation levels as the original colours didn’t connote the genre well. The new colour-filter better connotes the darkness and fear typical of the genre and I believe played a fundamental role in making the trailer more effective. I used fade to black and fade to white transitions on nearly every shot to create the sense of fluidity in the trailer and to only show parts of the film to give a better sense of the whole film, which is conventional for a film trailer. Fade to white was used on several occasions because it matched the visual effects that were in place, such as whiting out the screen, rather than fade to black which contrasted badly and would ruin the overall effect of the trailers professional look. Fade to black was used as this allowed me to transition from a scene to a black background where I could put text on.On screen text was used as this gave the viewer a much better idea of what the storyline was about, while keeping the overall trailer relatively short, and without revealing too much of the film. It was more effective than a narrator, as this would have removed the fear and mystery from the trailer , and it would have messed up with the sequence of the music.

Evaluation:I used websites like Survey Monkey to help me collect audience feedback for my teaser trailer as they can collect data and easily turn it into a graph. It was also a much more time effective method of collecting audience feedback, and made sense as my trailer was uploaded to the internet and not shown by me to the audience personally.