EVALUATION QUESTION 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 1

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In conclusion, we have used a number of typical conventions for each the trailer, poster and magazine. Our trailer takes a similar form to other low-budget horror films like REC, and Paranormal Activity, through the use of hand-held camera styles and simple plot lines creates a sense of realism, with the element of fear created through the audience feeling disorientated and unaware of what is happening. We have used techniques from trailers we researched to add to the mise en scene, from the map, and establishing shots to the location itself, this takes influence from the trailers for 28 Days Later, and Texas Killing fields.


Our magazine and poster use the typical conventions of magazines and film posters to enable them to appear professional. However, breaking out of the typical conventions of a film magazine, ours takes the form of a "Special edition Horror issue" so that the dark colours and use of the colour red suggests the impending danger, and elements of horror, similar to those in the trailer.

The "noise" effect used in the trailer has also been duplicated on the poster, linking the two appropriately. This idea came from the noise effect of the "Quarantine" movie poster, and is created on Photoshop for the poster, using a filter, located at Texture>Grain>Horizontal. This is becoming a common feature in film trailers, and because it is featured in our trailer, I felt it would be more effective in the combination of all three products.

FINAL Copy of Magazine front cover

FINAL poster

Editing the footage

These past few days we have been moving our footage around. We have started to re-arrange the order of the clips according to our new script. We have inserted our new footage of the old, boarded up building in Wigan. The clips we have collected will be transitioned from one to the next using a fade (to black/white depending on the image). To do all of this we have use Premiere Pro.

                                                         

The sounds that we have collected and created for our trailer such as the sound tracks backwards , heavy breathing, screaming, foot steps, doors slamming shut etc, are all successful. Yet we recorded the mother of one of the team members reading the reporter script. We thought that although her voice was good and fitted the part she did not have enough emotion and variety in her voice. We re-recorded this with another family member of the team and this now sounds much better.

To complete the trailer, we need to add the sound and preview screens/credits.

New voice recordings

The other voice recordings we had of the news report weren't all suitable for the trailer, so after a discussion with the group, I decided to take home a voice recorder and try to recreate the recordings, in the style of a news report. I used the same script as previously, but a different person, so we had more choice of recordings when we came to editing the trailer.

New Photoshoot

To enable us to create the magazine and poster, we needed new pictures. Involving full body shots of Taylor and Joe. The contact sheet of images from this shoot are below:

Font Research

I tried out different fonts to get the right font for our poster.

These are a few fonts that can be related to the normal horror poster's that are on the market today.
I need to develop and make sure I get the right font. I can edit a couple of these and take my research further and produce a final font.

As a group we really liked this font, it gives the "static" effect that is included in televisions and when camera's are dropped, as we drop a camera in a trailer it can be releated to this to make the poster and the trailer have a mutual feel.

Molly created a poster that we have tested to make sure the font works with both the images and the credits. The font is distinctive and can be read easily. This makes sure that we can use this and include it in our final product.

Another poster mockup

To develop ideas for a final poster, I created a second poster, using a different idea altogether, I created the credits that could be used on all of our poster ideas, and I didn't have any images that were suitable for the poster, so I created it using this image so that I could gain ideas from this.

The font styles for both the credits and the title were found and downloaded off dafont.

Filming; New Location

As we needed some new footage of an actual building, we didn't have to go back to Preston to get all our footage.

On the 2nd of December we went to get some covering footage of a building in Wigan. The building is rundown and looks the same as the Preston building that we previously filmed.

We took some footage of a scan of the building include a couple of good shots of birds going in and out of the windows

Film RENAME

We wanted to change the name of the film, and brainstormed a number of ideas so we could come up with a final name for the film.

Things in court: 

To get a more professional and inciting film name which would seem more realistic as a real movie name. To do this we looked up each word. This gave us more ideas of possible titles. Our favourite word using the brainstorm was "Indignation" which means: Anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment. Which links into the film because the murderer's victims were all criminals in some form, or liars, drug dealers etc.

Film plot

17/04/2001-24/04/2001- A series of murders took place in Preston, all 14 people were brutally killed by Viktorr Thistle. He lived in Amounderness house, which used to be used as a court building, after the death of his wife and children, this led him to lose sanity within his own home. People believed he murdered out of vengeance for his family, and all the people murdered were criminals, that he believed were "guilty" of some crime, and his only way to remain happy was to take their lives. At the end of the week, close onto his trail, police found Viktorr's body in the center of Preston. Locals called this week the "Indignation murders."

Ten years later, on the anniversary of the murders, after families have mourned their lost ones, things start to take a turn for the worse. Sightings happen around Amounderness house, and people again start to go missing. Posing the question.. Is Viktor back? Or is someone playing a heartless joke on the locals, by mimicking the murders of ten years ago?!

Map Edited Images

To add to the mise on scene of the trailer, we decided to create a "map" mapping out the killings that took place, and who was murdered.

It also gives one of the character's names "Victorr Thistle" He has this name as the 14 murders he has committed, each victims first letter of their names spell his name - this is why he has two "r"s in his name. This could maybe convey something like the case of Jack the Ripper where two people were killed in the first night but he was disturbed whilst murdering the first victim and found another victim with the same letter, therefore giving him two R's.


Joe used After Effects to change some of this.

To give the effect that the first letter is significant, I created a new title and selected a blue circle over the first letter of the Letter

I then placed a black box over the top of the image, this allows the images around the selected letter to be black so more en thesis is placed onto the text

I then used the effect "Colour Key" and selected the colour blue. This changes the layout and lets the blue circle look like it has been present. It makes it look a lot more important and makes the viewer really look into the letter

I then added a fade effect which makes the images interlink so it was all one video.

Ideas for movie poster

After looking at movie posters, I felt inspired by the "Shutter" movie poster. So I did a mock up of a possible movie poster, using an image of Taylor's face, with a montage of other images taken in the building we filmed at. I used a desaturated image, and changed the levels and used the burn tool to get a "burned out" effect on the image.

My mockup:

Analysis of movie poster company credits

To be able to make the company credits at the bottom of a horror poster, I looked at existing ones, so that I could determine exactly what information is in the credits.

New Photoshoot: Empire Magazine and Action Shots

We decided to go and take a photo shoot and take pictures of more interesting, and more exciting action poses.

Below is the contact sheet on the different images that we took

Monday the 14th November

Today I (Taylor) started to edit our footage together. As the script is now finished (sounds and footage) I started to try to plan out the footage and sounds following the script.

We all looked at our trailer so far and have all decided that we need more footage and so are going to do some voice recordings, and other things to use in the trailer.

Ideas for Sequences

From the clips we have gathered we have created a few scenarios that we could use to create the trailer as they work as sequences.

Cell:

• Blood drip on hand
• Zoom In
• Jump cut to other parts of the room
• Looks at the 'Help Me' blood splatter

Spinning Cell:

• Speed up footage
• Merge footage with text and footage with no text
• Stop on the wall
• Show the 'Help Me' writing

Running:

• Running
• drop the Camera
• Sound clip of people shouting run
• Fade to darkness

End:

• Joe moving the door handle very slowly
• open it quickly to reveal nothing
• Fade to darkness
• Whistling begins (song)
• Coming soon screen appeared

News Sequences:

1 - 10 Year anniversary (Beginning of the killings/murders)
   - Sightings in the building
   - Strange noises/happenings

2 - Anniversary
   - Revival of an old story
   -Two people have gone missing within the building, haven't been seen in a long time

Names of the film:

1. Amounderness House Murders
2. Whistler
3. Indignation

Name of the murderer

X=Not using

Surname;
- Jenkins X
-Thistle
-Whistle X (Thinking of using the whistling for the 'trademark' for the killer)
-Scott X

Forename;
-Nicholas X
-Abraham X
-Victor
-Franklin X

We wanted to use an old and unusual name for the murderer. We decided that the killer should have a trademark like some of the other famous movie killers;

- Freddy Krueger ("Nightmare on elm Street" series);  Scratching and the non-diegetic song is played in most of his films (1,2, Freddy's coming for you...)
- Jigsaw ("Saw" series); drum beats and a string orchestra which gets more intense as the killing is coming closer (Typically, the puppet's face will be seen on screen, and he will say "I want to play a game...")

As we wanted our character to also be realistic we wanted our character to also have a 'trademark' etc. As we have filmed one of our characters whistling in the spot light and found the sounds rather scary, we wanted to use whistling as our killers 'tradmeark'. This is also why we decided to use the name 'Thistle' so that we could create an easy tag line such as 'Victor Thistle. Hear him whistle'.

Possible Film Names

Different Film Ideas...Which would you choose?
10 years too late
Killer Death
Maniac 10 years



After creating a radio button list with a submit box, this allows different people to input there most favorite film idea. After getting the results back we was able to load the information into Microsoft Excel to create a pie chart to get the correct results.

PICTURE HERE, NOT WORKING ATM

Magazine Development...

To establish what makes a magazine and poster look professional, I made a mock-up of the layout for the magazine and poster.

Magazine:

Influence-

In order to produce my magazine, I felt it was important to research existing magazines, and the one which I felt was like what I wanted ours to look like is this issue of SFX, which is a special edition "Horror" issue. I like the conventions used on this, which are different to the typical film magazine. I will take influence from this whilst creating my own magazine cover.