Figment Horror Trailer - FINAL CUT

Figment Horror Trailer from Ryan Willis on Vimeo.

Ancillary Tasks 1 & 2 - DONE

EVALUATION - How did you use media technologies in the construction of research planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the creation of both my main construction which is a horror trailer and my two ancillary tasks which are a horror poster and magazine cover, I used various types of media technology.

For my research and planning I used YouTube to watch horror trailers which I used as style models for aspects and the technical codes; mise-en-scene, edits, cinematography and sound.

For the main construction the main program I used was iMovie for editing videos. I didn’t really have any prior knowledge of iMovie therefore I had to learn much about it before I began to use it, I did this by watching some tutorials to get a basic but general idea of how to edit on the program. I didn't need extensive knowledge of editing because of the plain look I wanted to give my horror trailer.

For the creation of my ancillary tasks I used Photoshop which I had a lot of experience using from AS Level therefore I had a base to start from when making my horror poster and magazine cover. I kept a specific colour scheme for both my horror poster and magazine cover and I think they were both reletively easy to put together because of the knowledge I had of Photoshop and also the simplicity of the way I wanted them to look.

Other media technologies that I used were using my blog to upload posts informing the department of my progress throughout the year, I had previous knowledge of Blogger from AS Level because I had used it to upload previous work and this helped me a lot, the one thing which I struggled with was the consistency of my uploads as sometimes I went a few weeks without uploading any information or updates.

For the filming process, I used a moving image camera and tripod which I had a considerable amount of experience with therefore the literal filming process was extremely easy, the one thing which was a slight setback was the difficulty of getting the clips from the camera to the computer to edit on iMovie but I was able to overcome this in the end.

For the evaluation stage, I used various things such as Prezi, Slideshare and Scribd which all show media and information in different ways, I was able to embed all of these onto my blog to show different forms of multimedia.

EVALUATION - In what way does your media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our main product which is a horror trailer uses and breaks various conventions used by stereotypical horror films and trailers. When making the trailer we agreed that not only did we need to follow some of the various conventions, we also needed to break some. One convention which we broke throughout the entire construction was the theory by Vladimir Propp to have at least seven characters appear throughout the trailer, we broke this as we only had three, the main protagonist who is a masked figure, the victim who is a teenage girl and the victim’s mother who only appear briefly. The main reason why we broke this convention was to create a more intimate or personal feel about the trailer where the audience has more of an opportunity to form opinions on the characters. The audience can for instance show a strong dislike or fear of the masked figure and sympathise with the young girl, I believe this gives the film a more personal feel which creates a connection between the characters and the audience.

One convention which we did follow throughout the entire trailer is Todorov’s theory of how a horror film should follow; EQUILIBRIUM, DISRUPTION, DISEQUILIBRIUM, SOLUTION and finally NEW EQUILIBRIUM. In the case of a trailer, the latter two (SOLUTION and NEW EQUILIBRIUM), should not be there as this would spoil the full film and would take away any suspense in the trailer. Since we only made a teaser trailer, we did not feature an EQUILIBRIUM in our trailer and we started with the DISRUPTION which is the teenage girl or victim having a nightmare, then the DISEQUILIBRIUM which is the sightings of the masked figure following her around, the trailer then goes on to build up and shows the effect the DISEQUILIBRIUM is having on the girl, the trailer then comes to a climax at the end which I believe holds the most tension in the trailer, building up most suspense with the audience.

As a group we agreed that sound was going to play a large part in creating suspense in the trailer therefore we used various different sounds dubbed over each other, as the trailer gets further on the sounds become louder and faster paced to bring the trailer to a suspenseful end. We also made sure that the way we edited the piece matched up the sounds we had used such as when the sounds get faster, the shots do too. One film which we used as guidance and a style model for our trailer was Sinister which follows a similar structure to our trailer with the main protagonist being a masked figure which the audience don’t see much of throughout the trailer for the film. We incorporated similar camera shots and angles and also sounds into our main construction. We followed Steve Neale’s theory that the pleasure of poplar cinema lies within the “difference in repetition” therefore as we followed various typical conventions of horror trailers, we made sure to break just as many.

EVALUATION - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Results of audience feedback from ryanwillis212

CLOSED QUESTIONNAIRE

OPEN QUESTIONNAIRE

EVALUATION - How affective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

One conscious choice that I made when creating my main construction and ancillary tasks was to not show too much of the main protagonist, the masked figure. I did this to create more suspense and make the audience when watching the trailer want to see the film more. Both the trailer and my ancillary tasks focus mainly on the lead female character, although my magazine cover shows the masked figure, I chose to use an effect to dull the picture down to see less of it and create a darkness about the character. Another reason why I chose to focus mainly on the young female character who is the 'victim' was to advertise the film to a younger audience and to make the audience sympathise with the character more. Overall I believe that my main construction and ancillary tasks go perfectly well together and complement each other well with both the aesthetics of them and the certain horror stereotypes they show.

Media Screening

To create awareness for the screening and to invite as many peers as possible, we created a Facebook event which created larger awareness and in turn made more people go.

Progress

Before Easter Half Term:
Ancilliary Tasks 100%
Filming/Construction 75%

Me, Reece and Sarah plan to mainly focus on filming over the 2 weeks Easter holiday therefore when we return afterwards our main construction will be completed and will be able to be shown infront of an audience to receive feedback

My other main focus over the holidays will be to upload more blog posts to improve my mark on Research and Planning.

I will post a percentage of how far along we are with our main construction during and after the holidays.

Plan for half term holiday

Over the next 9 days half term holiday I plan to keep up with my work-load which includes doing revision for the Media Concepts exam in June and continuing with coursework (Horror Trailer and 2 Ancillary tasks)
I will be focusing mainly on Ancillary task 2 which is a magazine cover for the trailer I am creating, shown below is my compelted Ancillary task 1:

Trailer opening sequence

This will be the opening sequence of my trailer which will last a total of 2 minutes when completed.

Potential photos for Ancillary Task 2

 

 

 

Potential background tracks for trailer

Check this out on Chirbit

Potential background tracks for trailer

Check this out on Chirbit

Production Schedule 2

Monday – No work for media on this day because all students involved in the group are in lessons.

Tuesday –

· Photographs for ancillary tasks will be taken during the morning periods to be edited onto our magazine covers

· A scene will be able to be filmed if there is enough time on that morning

Wednesday – Reece will be in lessons, Ryan will be working on IT and Sarah will be able to work on Ancillary tasks.

Thursday – Lessons during the morning periods for all students and the afternoon media lesson is focused on the discussion of British film.

Friday – We intend to all work through filming some key scenes in our trailer and manage to edit that footage into the final project if possible.

Production Schedule 1

Monday: Intention was to film, but unfortunately the weather has ruined our opportunity because the location was an outside scene, therefore this has to be re-scheduled.

Tuesday: If possible, we would like to be able to edit the footage that we have so far.

Wednesday: Ryan and Reece have an ICT exam, whereas I will be trying to edit more footage during my morning free periods.

Thursday: There will nothing that can be done today as we are all in lessons.

Friday: Ryan and Reece have an ICT exam and I have an English exam but more editing will be done afterwards until home study.

Changes to my AS Music Magazine

This year, I was given the task of improving my AS Music Magazine coursework. After speaking to Mrs Hopkinson about various features of my magazine which needed improvement I decided that it was best to almost completely change the layout of it.

Using a style model which I chose, I completely changed the layout of my front cover using conventions of an alternative music magazine, with simple headings and a large main image, I also changed many of the other headlines on the page.

My contents page needed much improvement in my eyes as it did not hold many conventions of a typcial music magazine, the layout was sparce and didn't look right at all therefore I again completely changed the layout and contents of the page so it looked a lot more professional and well put together such as adding a lot more 'contents' to it and adding larger and smaller stories which the reader could potentially read if the magazine was published.

My biggest task was my main article pages which needed the most improvement. I changed the whole layout of the pages and took new images so it looked even more professional, I kept the contents of the pages the same as it was before as I believe this suited the type of magazine I was creating in the first place which is alternative music thereofore I did not alter the text much, only grammatically improved it.

The style model for my front cover helped me a lot to make my magazine look more professional and hold more conventions of a typical music magazine. The style model I used was Q magazine which is shown here:

AS Music Magazine Improved Version

Front Cover

Contents Page

Article Pages

Reflection on my Blog so far...

In today's lesson, we looked at each others blogs and gave each other positive and negative feedback. I recieved comments about many aspects of my blog posts.

The positive comments that I recieved stated that I have good use of images whether it is images of inspirations and/or style models or images of props or locations which will be used for filming the project and that I have evidence of planning throughout my project so far.

Some of the nagative feedback I recieved involved going into detail on my blog postsand providing evidence for posts such as images or videos to back up ideas about props or certain camera angles.

To improve upon all of the nagative comments I shall do the following;

• Go into much more detail in blog posts such as stating specific aspects of project/filming e.g specific locations, props, speech, diegetic/non-diegetic music or sound effects.
• Always produce evidence of points stated in blog posts such as if a specific location or costume etc. is stated, an image or video will be shown of it if available.

From now on I will attempt to produce detailed blog posts more often (approx. 3-5 per week).

Brief and Narrative

Which brief are you pursuing?

A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with a teaser poster and a film magazine cover.

Group project List roles and responsibilities if you are working in a group?

Ryan Willis – Actor/Editor Reece Beveridge – Cameraman Sarah Watson – Actress/Director

Write a brief summary of your concept for the main task (Narrative)

Jamie is reflecting on her childhood to her therapist. She talks about the times her grandfather would tell her stories about how he was a medic in the war, and the story of how he was attending to a man who was bleeding to death, but had to leave him and deal with a group of men dying on the field – so the man bled to death. Before she was institutionalised, she researched and discovered that the man’s body was never found. These are what led to the night terrors that made her hallucinate and drove her insane. Now she still has to be tied to the bed because these dreams of the man coming back for her are causing her to have violent fits in her sleep. She eventually begins to believe that the man is coming back for her because she is finding it difficult to differentiate between her dreams and reality. List any ideas for locations. (Mise en scene) Woods, car, bedroom, empty street List any ideas for costume and props (Mise en scene) White mask with zip for a mouth Gas mask Sounds Non diegetic to build up tension; tracks selected from a number of different horror films that could link well to our trailer. This is yet to be researched. Silence to keep the audience in anticipation. Drum beats during the build-up of the title sequence.

Main Characters

The Victim

Taking influence from a number of female victims in well known horror films such as A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween and The Ring.