The Last Rave Trailer

Here is our final cut for out trailer.

Filming

We filmed our trailer in January and early February. To get all the shots and footage we wanted we had to film on several different days. On a couple of days our filming wasn't so successful as we left it to late and the camera was unable to pic up any movement or some shots very clearly. this meant we had to come back another evening in order to try and capture our shots at the right time when there was enough light to film, but still dark enough to give a creepy feel to our trailer. Luckily when we did get the timing right the conditions for filming were perfect as there was a low lying mist surrounding the forest which was ideal for establishing shots and added another typical horror element to our trailer. Here are some shots of us filming for our trailer.

This picture shows the low angle long-shot we used to show the car braking down in the forest. the long shot shows that they are in a woodland area and also shows that they are not on a road and are away from civilisation. This helps give the sense of being lost and alone. We choose the low angle shot as it makes the trees in the background look bigger and daunting.

One of our shots involved swinging an axe attached to a piece of rope from an over hanging branch whist one of the characters was walking thorough the forest looking for help. This shot took several attempts to get the timing right so that the axe swung just after our character (Rosie) walked under the branch. We also had to ensure than neither me or the excess rope was visible in the shot.

This picture shows the camera set up on the tripod ready to film the swinging axe shot. Again this shot was a low angle long shot. The long shot was required in order to fit everything in and the low angle seemed to work best as it made the trees and the axe look bigger and also captured more sky which helped show up the axe best.

Here is Rosie setting up the camera on the tripod for a shot of the teenagers walking through the forest looking for help.

This shows us about to film a close up shot of one of the characters being choked with an axe. We used an over the shoulder close-up to make it seem as if it was from the killers perspective and to sow the expressions of the victim.

When it came to editing however we decided not to use this shot as we didn't want to reveal to much in the trailer and thought it would be better if we left the victims death as a mystery so that hopefully more people would be enticed to see the film.

This shows me (Jack) filming a hand held point of view shot showing the creepy deserted hut found in the forest whilst looking for help. The shaky hand held shot shows it from the characters POV and adds a feeling of panic and anxiety to show how scared the characters are. The pan shows the content of the hut (pots ,pans and lit candles) this shows that the teenagers are not alone in the forest and finding help might not be the most of their worries.

Final story board

Here is our finalised story board incluing the changes made to the original. some of the changes made include things like:

 -alternations on angles (e.g. we changed the hand held shot of the deserted shed to a tripod pan shot as we already had a number of hand held shots in our story.)

- An extra establishong shot of the forest to help set the scene better and make it clearer for the audience.

-We also changed a mid angle shot of one of the victims walking, to a low angle where only their feet can be seen. We did this to try and include a wider variety of shots in our trailer.

Poster research

Out of the posters I looked at, I decided that this one was the closest to what we wanted ours to be like. the poster is fairly simple layout with not much to distract the viewers attention from the title. the title is in a larger size  than any other text. it is also in a creepy old fashioned style font and in a dark colour which contrasts well with background colour of the poster which is a light shade of blue/grey.

the image on the poster is of a strange unidentified person dressed in black and wearing a mask which makes them look weird and mysterious. there is also a fog effect covering the whole poster. this makes the image of the person look more mysterious and is a stereotypical aspect of many horrors.

the thing which i liked most about this poster and what made it stand out from the others was that after looking at the poster for a while, a faint image of a face can be identified covering the majority of the poster. this can only just be made out and has a spine chilling effect on viewers when seen. this may entice viewers to watch the film as they will want to see what other mysteries and also the identity of the two figures on the poster.

Another aspect of this poster which i like is that it is very simple but yet in some ways more effective then other posters of the horror genre. I hope to create a similar effect with our poster.

Our Poster + Questionnaire

We decided to make two different styled posters and get feedback from other people about which one they thought was more effective. Above is our first poster we made which is based on our original idea. The poster is fairly dark and we choose white coloered font to contrast with the dark background and stand out to grap peoples attention. The title of our film (Last Rave) is in a larger size than the other text so that people immediately know what it is called. We choose an old fashioned style of font as we thought that it went well with the image and had a more sinister look than more bubbly or bold font types. We also left large gaps between words in our title. We did this because it made the text stand out better and was easy to read from a greater distance. Also it went will with simplistic style of our poster. For the image we used a shot of a mysterious looking pond in a forest with a faded picture of an axe over the top of it. The image on our poster establishes that the film is set in a wooded area. The axe also has connotations of death and murder and is stereotypical of many horrors. This shows that our poster is for a horror film and will appeal to our target audience of people who like horrors. When making the poster we tried to make the axe only just visible so that people would be intreaged and look carefully at the poster to be sure that it is not just their eyes playing tricks on them. We made this poster using 'Paint Shop Pro'. This was farily basic and easy to use but had some good effective features.



This is our second poster we made. We tried to make this one look more modern by using an effect. Like our first poster we made it dark with contrasting text colour. We also used a different image to our first poster. We decided to use the low angle shot of the car broken down in the forest. We also changed our caption from ' a short cut to death' to 'the road to death' as we though that it went better with the image of the car. The shot shows the bonnet of the car open and someone looking at the engine whilst in the forest. This shows that the teenagers are stranded and lost in the forest. Although we were quite pleased with the outcome of this poster and thought it looked

Here is the questionnaire we constructed and some of the feedback which helped us to decide which one to choose. The questionnaire was filled out by a class of 20 year 11s.

Audience Poster Questionnaire Data


What do you think the genre of each poster is?:
1. (17 said horror, 2 said action and 1 said romance)
2. (12 said horror, 4 said action, 3 said thriller, 2 said fantasy)

Which of these posters makes you want to see the film? and why?:
1. ( 12 said they would rather see this film)
2. (8 said they would rather see this film)

What do you think these films are about?
1. " some one dying after leaving a rave", " a break down then a scary trip in the woods", "doom".
2. " someone dying in a car crash", " teenagers being killed in by a car", " a crazy person in a car".

Which tag line do yo prefer?:
1.(18 preferred this title)
2.(2 preferred this title)

What do you think of the title?:
"it is interesting and intriguing", "simple but good because it catches my attention", " it makes you want to know what happens", "it seems a bit odd and unrelated".

Which font do you preferre?:
1.(10 preferred this font)
2.(10 preffered this font)

Which poster do you think is more eye-catching?:
1.(8 thought this poster was more eye catching)
2.(12 thought this poter was more eye catching)

What would you change about each poster?:
1. "make the tagline slightly bigger", " i would give it a blck boarder", "change the title"
2. "more resmblance of horror", "move the writing to the bottom of the poster".

|Which is your favourite poster?:
1.(14 choose the first poster)
2.(6 choose the secound poster)

Representation in our trailer

Characters

The characters in our trailer are supposed to represent stereotypical middle class teenagers  who would be likely to attend raves and partys. To acheive this we carefully thought about what each character should be wearing and how they should act. The clothing we chose for our chacters included things such as hoodys, Jeans, and trainers. We also made sure that they were all wearing fashionable brands such as Nike and Adidas and other brands which are popular with most teenagers.  We wanted our characters to look like average everyday teenagers and not to stand out as un-ordinary. By dressing our characters in ordinary clothes it gives the sesnse that anyone could find themselves in the same situation making it scarier for the audience especially teenagers who are our target audience. Although we wanted all our characters to represent normal teenagers we thought we would give them all something which made them individual. For example one of our characters is wearing a New Era cap which represents the skate boarding community. Our target audience will likely be aware of this connotation however older people might not. We also ensured that the way our characters speek accurately represents the language which modern, middle class teenagers use. For example using slang words like ‘dunno’ are more effective at representing teenagers than posher or elder English vocabulary which isn’t used as commonly amoung younger generations.

Mise en scene

The first few shots in our trailer are filmed in a village with middle class housing. This represents where the characters are from so the audience know what sort of people they are by stereotyping the characters to to the types of houses. For example if the characters were shown leaving a large traditional looking house then the audience might assume that they were posh and this would not fit the role of our characters as they would not be likely people to be attending an illegal rave. The secound half of our trailer is filmed in a forest at dusk. This combination has many mysterious and spooky connotations which help give a sense of feeling lost which is what we wanted to achieve. Throughout our trailor it gets progressively darker which gives a sense of panic and builds suspense as the audience knows that something will happen when it is dark. The darkness has connotations of entrapment and it many films represents a time of death or when something spooky happens.

Sound

In the clip of the characters driving to the rave the music is played loudly from the car. This is another stereotypical thing for young drivers to do and shows that our characters conform to their stereotypes. The non diegetic sound we added in is our soundtrack to our trailer. We made it so that it helps build tension by increasing the pace of the music throughout the trailer.

Props

In a couple of our shots in the forests we used an axe which we placed in various places to try and make our trailer more creepy and twisted. We used an axe because in other films in often represents a murder weapon and has connotations of death.

Magazine cover research

To get ideas for our magazine cover we evaluated an already existing cover. We chose to analyse this Total Film magazine cover of The Dark Night as we want our cover to be similar and have the same effect. The first thing the reader notices with this cover is that it is very dark. Black is the main colour giving the cover a sinister and mysterious feel to it. Also the colour black can be used to represent Batman as he is well known for his all black outfit.

Christian Bale who plays Batman is stood in the centre of the page with nothing surrounding him this draws the readers attention to the main character. He is wearing the icon

ic all black batman suit which represents the well known superhero so the readers will know straight away what the main theme of the magazine is. The Batman suit itself has many connotation of a bat, for example the two spikes on the mask are like bats ears. The suit also makes Batman look muscular and strong and who is not afraid. Also the posture of the actor has connotations of someone who is tough and in control.

The only text on the cover is on a bold font and also in black and reads 'Rough justice, the dark night wages war on terror'. The effect of having no other writing on the cover draws in the reader to the main theme of the magazine and also implies that The Dark Night is going to be a big film as the Total Film magazine feels it is necessary to dedicate a whole magazine just to that one film.

His body language also suggests that he is powerfull and in control as he is stood square on with wide stance and no facial expression.