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.

Anamatic and changes

After handing out questionnaires and looking into the results, we decided to change our plot of sightly to make it more appealing to our target audience. our original idea proved not fast paced and exciting enough as feed back from our questionnaire suggested that we should change the pace of our narrative to make it more exhilarating. although most elements of our narrative remained the same (characters, location etc.) we did make some alterations such as some of the angles and shot lengths used in order to meet the audiences response. We also changed the location which we used in our anamatic as people said that they thought the woodland location used allowed to much visibility and didn't help build suspense. for our final idea we chose a denser part of the forest which looked much darker and sinister than our original location.

Here is a link to our anamatic:

 http://www.slideshare.net/rosiea2media/animatic-7357990

Story board



 This is our original story board for our movie trailor. After starting to film we realised that we needed to change some of our shots because we either didn't have the resources needed to do them or decided that a different shot would have been better. We then produced another story board which included the changes we made to the original. This will be shown in a later post.

Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the UK. It has a statutory requirement to classify videos, DVD's and some video games under the Video Recordings act 2010

Symbol	Name	Definition/Notes
	Universal	All ages admitted, there is nothing unsuitable for children. Films under this category should not upset children under 4. Example: Ferngully, The Incredibles
	Parental Guidance	All ages admitted, but certain scenes may be unsuitable for children under 8. Example: The Simpsons Movie
	12A	Cinema only. Introduced in 2002. Films under this category are considered to be unsuitable for very young people. Those aged under 12 years are only admitted if accompanied by an adult, aged at least 18 years, at all times during the motion picture. However, it is generally not recommended that children under 12 years should watch the film. Films under this category can contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, commonly used milder swear words, and moderate violence/sex references. Example: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pirates of the Caribbean, Yes Man
	12	Home media only since 2002. 12A-rated films are usually given a 12 certificate for the VHS/DVD version unless extra material has been added which makes it need a higher rating. Nobody younger than 12 can rent or buy a 12-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game.
	15	Only those over 15 years are admitted. Nobody younger than 15 can rent or buy a 15-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, commonly used swear words, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and mild non-detailed sex activity. Example: Black Christmas
	18	Only adults are admitted. Nobody younger than 18 can rent or buy an 18-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category do not have limitation on the bad language that is used. Hard drugs are generally allowed, and strong violence/sex references along with non-detailed sex activity is also allowed. Example: Hostel, Saw III
	Restricted 18	Only adults are admitted, and can only be shown at licensed cinemas or sold at sex shops. This rating does not exist for video games yet. Films under this category has material which the BBFC does not allow for it's "18" rating but is considered acceptable by law. Thus the violence and sex activity will be stronger in R18-rated VHSes, DVDs and films than those which are rated "18". Example: Deep Throat

We decided to give our film a 15 classification. We decided this would be best because it would allow a wider audience than if we were to make it an 18. With a 15 classification it allows us to include mild violence and horror scenes which is what we need to include in our trailer to create the effect we want.

Symbol	Name