Paper Draft of Magazine Front Cover Idea

Paper Draft of Film Poster Idea

The differences between a teaser trailer and the main theatrical trailer

Here is my own explanation of what I believe are the main distinctions between a teaser trailer and the main theatrical trailer along with an example of each to further explain:

A teaser trailer is normally around 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds long and tends to be released a little while before the main theatrical trailer. The purpose of releasing a teaser trailer is to tease its audience by revealing to its target audience a little bit of the footage taken from the film so that it can get the audience interested in the film and encourage them to want to watch more. They will not reveal any significant details of the narrative of the film so that the audience are left in suspense wanting to know more. Teaser trailers are normally released online so they originally are only seen by an audience who are interested in films or happen to browse through film teaser trailers.

Here is an example of a film teaser trailer:


As you can see from this teaser trailer the editing is made to show a montage of different clips from the film all of which tease the audience so they are left wanting to know much more about the film.


The main theatrical trailer is released after the teaser trailer and tends to be much longer (normally around 2-3 minutes long) and is designed to reveal more scenes taken from the film so that its target audience is persuaded to go and watch the film at the cinema. The main theatrical trailer will reveal much more of the narrative than the teaser trailer will and is also played across a wider range of media such as TV and cinema advert screenings so more people tend to see this trailer than the teaser trailer.

Here is an example of a main theatrical trailer:


A you can see from this main theatrical trailer, the editing is much slower than the teaser trailer and scenes from the actual film are shown in greater detail and last a lot longer than seen in the teaser trailer. The length of the trailer itself is also a lot longer so more of the narrative can be given away, although both a teaser trailer and a main theatrical trailer will remain persuasive so that its audience will go and watch the film in full at the cinema.

Original photos for both products

These are the orignal images taken for our magazine front cover. The image is at the top in the centre was tazken without the studio lighting whilst the other images were taken with it used. The images that I chose to use within my magazine front cover is the top left image to be used as the main image on the front cover and also the close up image at the bottom right as I felt this would be a good image to use as a smaller one below my main image.

Storyboards for Own Horror Trailer

Storyboards for our trailer

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Off Campus Trailer

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the coursework unit we have had to use a variety of different media technologies in order to construct together all of our blog posts including the research, planning and evaluation stages as well as learn how to film and create our own horror trailer.

In order to complete the research and planning section of my blog I had to use new media technologies that I hadn't used before. In order to exploit the full potential of my blog I needed to use programmes such as these:

Blogger

The main programme that we have needed to use throughout the unit is Blogger as this is the programme where all of our work has been uploaded to. Because this is the same programme that we used in our AS coursework, I have now become used to using Blogger and find it rather easy to use in terms of uploading my work and presenting it in a way that makes a piece of text more enjoyable to look at and read. What I particularly like about Blogger is how accessible it is for me to use as it is all done online so therefore I can access my blog from both at college and at home. It is also very useful for my teacher as it enables them to mark my work online and leave comments on each post telling me how I have done and things that I could improve to make it better. One thing I would say that I don't like about the programme is I sometimes find it difficult to create blog posts when I want to add images and links to my posts as the images are only available in particular sizes and positions so therefore it can sometimes be difficult to see the blog post up in the way that I want it to. This therefore doesn't allow me to be as creative with the way I present my blog posts as much as I would like to. There can also sometimes be some technical difficulties with the programme such as when uploading blog posts for instance which you wouldn't get with written work. Overall, I have learnt a lot from using an online blog in order to complete my coursework as it has given me the opportunity to work with a new type of media technology that I hadn't worked with before A levels, however I'm not sure if I would say that this is better than submitting a piece of written coursework.

Flickr

A programme that I had to use a lot, particularly for analysing different magazine covers and film posters was Flickr. This programme allowed me to upload images of things I needed to analyse such as film magazine covers so that I could then add 'Tags' to my image. Tags can be drawn round any part of an image such as the Masthead for example so that I could then write a note on that particular aspect of the image. I would do this on every part of the image I needed to talk about so that when its done, you can view the image in full and then scroll over any part of the image I had analysed and read the notes I had put about it. This I found was a very effective way of analysing images as well as being a much more interesting way to write about a particular image.

Slideshare

Slideshare is a programme that allows you to present a PowerPoint of your work which can then be viewed through slideshare so that you can view each slide of your work. I found that this was a really good way of presenting some of my work as it is much more visibly appealing to look at and display my work as opposed to a standard blog post.

Surveymonkey

Surveymonkey.com is the website that I used in order to gather our audience research on horror films. By using Surveymonkey to collect our results as opposed to an ordinary questionnaire, it enabled us to receive results from a wider audience as opposed to people around college. By conducting audience research it helped us to establish our idea of what we wanted our horror trailer to be about as well as what our target audience liked to see within a horror trailer. The website enabled us to choose what kind of questions we wanted (yes/no, open answered) so that we could receive a wide range of results as well as see our audiences detailed opinions on what they liked through open answered questions.

In order to actually make our horror trailer I again needed to use a range of media technologies, most of which I either hadn't used before or had very little experience in using. These were: 

Digital HD Video Camera

Before this coursework unit, I hadn't really had any experience in using a digital video camera so this unit was good practise for me to learn how to use one. Once I had learnt all of the different video camera settings that I needed to know, I found it very easy to use and I believe that as a group we captured some very effective shots for our trailer. We also needed to use a tripod to make sure that our shots were steady to make our trailer look more professional however we also experimented with hand-held shots which worked well as a horror convention as it connotes disorientation.

Final Cut Pro

Once we had filmed the shots for our horror trailer we then had to edit the clips and create a teaser trailer using the programme Final Cut Pro. I had only ever used this programme once before at the beginning of the A2 course so it therefore took me a little while to adjust to using a new programme. Once I had practised a few times on it, I found the programme quite simple to use. We cut down our clips to the right length that we wanted and then dragged them onto the timeline which is where we would order our footage and control where we wanted transitions and intertitles in order to make our horror trailer appear like a real film trailer. Here are examples of how I used Final Cut Pro to edit our clips of footage:

This Flickr analysis explains the top half of the screen shot:

This Flickr analysis explains the bottom half of the screen shot:

Garageband

Garageband is a programme that we used on the macs in order to create individual pieces of music or sound effects to go with our horror trailer footage. I found this to be a very simple programme to use which allowed me to experiment with different notes until I had decided on one that I felt was effective as a horror sound effect to go with our footage. This included pre-recorded effects we used within our trailer such as the 'booms' and high key piano notes.

I also had to complete two ancillary tasks in which I was required to make a film poster for our horror trailer and also a magazine cover. This is the programme we used to make them:

Photoshop

In order to complete my ancillary tasks of a film magazine cover and also a film poster to go with our finished horror trailer, I needed to create them on Photoshop. I have used Photoshop many times both in my media lessons and photography lessons so therefore I knew exactly how to use the programme. My experience in using Photoshop has grown over both the AS and A2 coursework and my skills in using it have developed as in AS we were given a few weeks in order to complete our magazine cover whereas in A2, we were given only a week to complete our magazine cover which shows how my skills in Photoshop have developed from AS to A2. I find that Photoshop CS5 is the easiest programme to use when creating media products such as magazine covers and film posters as it allows you to design the products in a way that I want as well as experiment with different blending modes and other features that help to create successful magazine covers/film posters.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The promotion of a new film release is a massive part of the marketing process as mentioned in my earlier blog post 'The Role of the Distributor' and can determine the success of a new film. It determines how well-known a film will be and whether many people will go to watch it or not as the promotions need to be spread across a wide range of different media and events that will get people talking about the latest film releases. Publicity is also another big way of getting a new film release noticed because by having a really good publicity team, it will allow a media product to receive good publicity and get people talking. Publicity teams, often supported by specialist agencies, arranges media interviews with available members of the film's cast which creates good publicity for both cast members and the film itself as both will be gaining publicity.

An example of a promotional package can be something exactly like what I have created on my blog. A teaser trailer for a new film being released along with a film poster to go with it are both big starting points that a marketing team promoting a new film would use as a way of promoting the film. We also had to create a magazine front cover that featured the release of our horror trailer. This is an example of gaining publicity for the release of our trailer as it offers an exclusive interview with the cast of our trailer 'Off Campus' which as mentioned above is good publicity for both the cast members and the film itself.

When it came to creating a film poster to go with my horror teaser trailer 'Off Campus' I wanted an image from the trailer that wouldn't give too much away to my audience but would intrigue them enough to want to watch the film. The image that I decided on for my poster was a still taken from the trailer of the main character and also the final girl 'Charlie' standing behind a fence and looking over her shoulder which reveals a dark garden, lit by a single light. The reason I chose this image for my poster was that I felt it highlighted the psychological horror within the film as well as portrayed the vulnerability of a girl in a horror film which tends to be a conventional element within horror. By having the main image of a film poster the same or similar to a shot taken from the actual trailer, it gives away to the audience a small insight as to what the narrative of the film may be about. This also includes the tagline I have chosen to use on the film poster as it is one of the intertitles used within our trailer which again reveals to the audience a brief insight into the narrative.









We also created a magazine cover which I chose to feature an exclusive interview with the cast of our trailer 'Off Campus'. Because I had already created a magazine front cover in my AS coursework, I found this rather simple to do as my skills in Photoshop had developed significantly from AS to A2 so therefore it was much quicker for me to create it this time round. Having a new film featured on a magazine cover is a great way to gain publicity for a new film and is beneficial for both the cast who are featured in the magazine interview and the film itself as both are gaining good publicity. Editorial coverage of a new film release can sometimes be more effective and persuasive than other advertising as an audience may find an independently written story more readable. Publicists will also compile press kits for journalists which will contain information such as: the cast and crew lists, biographies, notable facts about the production and a synopsis. All of these things will create big publicity for a film as they are available for journalists to see so that they can then arrange to have the cast of the film featured in different magazines and interviews, all of which will gain big publicity for the release of a new film. I also included a website for the magazine which again can be a big way for our film gaining wider publicity.

As well as a film poster and a magazine cover featuring the film, the biggest way to promote our film was through creating a trailer. This is one of the biggest ways of promoting a new film as it is spread across the biggest areas within the media such as TV and Internet so that it can be seen by a large proportion of our target audiences. The purpose of our trailer was to promote the film but through visuals that give the audience a basic idea of what the film is and will consist of, without giving too much away but revealing enough that it makes them want to view the full film at a cinema. The idea is to persuade and tease our audience into wanting to know more about the film which is why this in combination with the film poster works great as a promotional package.

Together I believe that my combination of our teaser trailer 'Off Campus' along with my film poster work well as a promotional package for the film as both are designed to tease the audience and promote the film. My magazine front cover is also another good combination with our trailer as it is designed to gain publicity for our film by gettng people interested in both our trailer and the cast so that our film has a wide range of good publicity which can also help in promoting the film.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In order to gain audience feedback on what our target audience (16-24 year olds) thought of our horror trailer, we conducted a screening of our teaser trailer in class (around 20-30 students) in which our audience would then fill out a sheet and write down things that they liked about the trailer and things that they felt could be improved to make it better. This was a good way of conducting audience feedback as everyone in the class was within the age group of our target audience so therefore our feedback was fitting with our target audience. I also enabled us to take on board any criticisms so we could therefore improve/change them if need be.

Most of the comments we received from our audience feedback were positive comments and particular elements of our trailer were repeatedly commented on as being an effective part of our trailer and how its been put together. These were elements such as:

Use of sound

• A lot of people commented on the suspense that was built within our trailer as the main vibe was it created enough suspense in the beginning of the trailer for it to then begin the fast-paced editing shots and create a scary ending for the trailer. We were really happy to have achieved this within our trailer as without the build up of suspense it would not have been as effective as a horror trailer.

Narrative/Storyline

• We also had various comments on our storyline we had chosen for our trailer as people were saying they found it easy to follow what the background story was within the trailer. This was an important aspect for us to get across in our trailer because our characters are closely related to the age group of our target audience so therefore they could connect well with the narrative of the trailer.

• We also received various positive comments on the ending we chose to present at the end of our trailer where you see a girl starting up the car engine but then the killer appears from the back of the car and grabs the girl round the neck. We were told from our feedback that this was an effective clip for them due to the use of camera shot we had used for the scene as well as how it made an effective jumpy ending. 

Intertitles

• We also received comments on the effects of our intertitles as the general feedback was they were effective text effects that fitted in with our horror trailer. We felt that including intertitles within our trailer was an important element as they divided up bits of footage as well as helped to build up the tension within our trailer which was one thing our audience frequently commented on saying they liked.

As well as positive comments about our trailer, we also received a few criticisms on things our audience felt could be improved within our trailer. These were elements such as:

Voice overs

• One of the criticisms we received was our use of voice overs within the trailer in particular shots where the characters were discussing events that had happened within the house as our audience found them to be a bit unclear and hard to hear due to the background music being too loud when the voice overs were being said. When screening our trailer we did have some technical difficulties which influenced the fact that they weren't very clear, however we have looked back over the original copy and found that the sound may not have been high enough for the voiceover so this is something which we will now adjust in order to make them more clear and improve our trailer.

Deaths and Final Girl

• Another criticism we received was that our audience felt that too many deaths were shown within our trailer and that they would have liked to have seen a 'final girl'. In our original group planning we did intend on having a final girl named 'Charlie' who is the girl seen in the end shot getting strangled in the car, however in our storyline plan we wanted her to escape the car and survive but this wasn't shown in our trailer which is why all of our characters appear to be killed.

Newspaper Clippings

• Some of our audience felt that the shots of the newspaper clippings towards the beginning of the trailer were too repetitive and didn't need to be shown quite as much as they were. We included shots of newspaper clippings in order to get across the background story of our trailer and the house that is featured in it. However, we do agree that these were perhaps shown a bit too much than needed so therefore this is something we can easily resolve.

Overall, I would say that the majority of the feedback that we received from our target audience was positive as we had some shots that they felt were very effective such as the jumpy scene in the car at the end and an effective scary killer. I believe that it is good that we also received a few criticisms as these are things that we can take on board and improve within our trailer to make it even better and more effective as a real horror film trailer. It was also nice to hear what people thought overall of our teaser trailer as this was our first time making a horror trailer so therefore we can learn from the comments we received.

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

Evaluation question one

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'Off Campus' Film Poster

'Preview' Magazine Cover

Empire Magazine Cover Analysis

Film Magazine Cover Analysis

Scream Poster Analysis

Friday The 13th Film Poster Analysis

Audience research

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This is a slide show of the results we collected from our horror movie survey. By collecting people's responses on what their main interests were in horror movies, it gives us a rough idea as to what we will need to include in our own horror trailer in order to attract our target audience.

We conducted our audience research by posting our own customised questionnaire on the website Surveymonkey.com. By posting our questionnaire online it enabled us to receive a variety of results from a range of different people so that we had a lot of information to consider when coming up with the final narrative for our horror trailer. The only downside to posting our questionnaire online was we did receive a few results that although were helpful to our decision, they were however not from people in our intended target audience of 16-24 year olds so therefore these results were not representative of our intended target audience.

We also shared our questionnaire on the social networking site Facebook which was another way in which we were able to obtain results from a large sample of our target audience. Questionnaires enabled us to receive both qualitative and quantitative data through the use of open and closed questions, both of which were really helpful for us to look at when deciding on our final horror narrative for the trailer.

Group's Planning

In our group's first initial meeting, we decided on an idea that we believed would be a good to film for our horrror trailer. We had already decided on a paranormal activity type of trailer that would show four students moving into a house that they later discover was haunted and had a background of murders commited within the house.We wanted to show that a very similar scenario was again beginning to happen with the current students who are moving into the house who will also be taken in and murdered by something that is haunting the house.

Location
The location we decided on to film our horror trailer was at one of our group's house as we believed it had many aspects that we could work with in order to make the house appear haunted such as: a garage, an attic and a back garden, all of which could be filmed effectively at different times of the day in order to make them appear scary and haunted.

Characters
Charlie (final girl) - Sophie
Andy - Owen
Dan - Ryan
Emma - Kate


Props
The list of props we decided we would need in order to make our trailer are:

• Car
• Pitchfork - needed for a death commited in the back garden
• Cloak/overals - costume to disguise the killer
• Prop camera - in order to show that the students are recording amateur footage themselves
• Blood, latex, make-up and blood packs - needed for the gory scenes
• Beer bottles and shot glasses - used in the drinking game seen - portraying students lives
• Newspaper clippings - to establish the house's background/murder history

Our Group's Initial Ideas for a Horror Movie

These are the general ideas that our group had when deciding on an idea for our horror trailer.

• Paranormal Activity type of trailer
• CCTV footage
• Amateur filming
• Family memories - newspaper clippings are found
• Background happenings - strange things have happened in the house over the years

Four students are renting a house off campus from their university. The house is in fact haunted which the students realise when they discover old newspaper clippings with daunting headlines that reveal many past events that had happened in the house. One person had commited horrible acts in which a number of victims were killed. The students stumble across the ghost who is haunting the house when filming amateur videos themselves. A series of shots will then be shown where a few of the current students will be killed themselves and become more victims taken in by the ghost. The story will tell a tale of the students trying to escape the deathly events by scaping both the house and the ghost, however not all of the students survive.

Gender Representation Essay

 Carol Clover, in Men, Women and Chainsaws argues that horror’s representation of gender is very interesting because it frequently offers its core target audience of young males an identification with a female character, unlike any other mainstream genre. To what extent do you think horror’s representation of gender challenges dominant representations?

Research of a wide range of media texts has traditionally reached similar conclusions about how gender is represented in the media which has come to represent a ‘classic’ approach to gender in the media. Generally men and women are categorised into their stereotypes that society has put them in so males in the media are shown to be dominant, strong, active, independent and authoritative whereas females in the media are shown as submissive, passive, with a focus on physical beauty, sexuality and emotionally, all of which are defined through relationships with men. Jeremy Tunstall looked at existing research and argued that the representation of women in the media is broken down to four categories of: domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. Women are depicted as busy housewives, as contented mothers, as eager consumers and as sex objects.

In the three horror films we have studied in class, Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980) and Eden Lake (2008) we have analysed both women’s visibility and their roles within the films to see whether they challenge or represent the research on gender in the media. According to the 1992 research, men on screen outnumber women by two to one therefore already visibility itself is an issue when looking at dominant gender representations. In two out of the three films we looked at, men outnumber women in both The Shining and even more so in Eden Lake, so from this you can already see that the majority of films in the horror genre continue to reflect the 1992 research and have the visibility of men outnumber the visibility of women showing a sexist approach towards females in the media. Also, by looking at the roles of the female characters within the three horror films it was apparent to see that women’s roles within the three films all seemed to confine women into one or more of the four categories that Jeremy Tunstall suggested women in the media emphasised.

Clip from 'Halloween' - Mike Myers kills his sister

In Halloween, the characters Annie, Linda and Judith Myers are all shown in states of undress so therefore are placed as sexualised characters within the film and as sexual characters, they all appear to be killed due to the sexual behaviour. This then portrays these characters in the film as women who do not follow the rules that men and society have laid out for them and therefore appear to be punished in the film for their sexual actions, however Carpenter apologises and explains that the only reason why the teenagers in Halloween die is because they were simply not paying attention and were distracted by typical teenage things whereas Laurie had less on her mind and therefore noticed the strange things that were happening. There are also elements within the film that portray the domestic and familial side of certain female characters for example both Laurie and Annie have jobs as babysitters however because Laurie is the main protagonist in the film it pulls her out of being defined simply as a woman  . A similar role is seen in the film The Shining where we see the character Wendy doing both familial and domestic work which appears to confine her again to one or more of the four categories however again Wendy becomes the protagonist and also takes over some of Jack’s jobs, making her the superior character. In the film Eden Lake the main character Jenny again falls into the familial/domestic category due to her occupation of a primary school teacher. The same character roles are also seen within the mothers of the gang members and one in particular who also works as a waitress. The only female gang member also appears to be discriminated because of gender as she has a very passive role within the gang and at some stages is called certain names which instantly discriminate her as a woman.

 

The Male Gaze

In addition to the roles of women in the media, another important area is to do with how the camera “looks” at women. It has been argued by many critics that in mainstream visual media the camera routinely objectify women which denies them any subjectivity/identity and instead treats them like objects to be looked at by the subject, who is almost always male. Many theorists including Laura Mulvey have suggested that much commercial cinema puts the spectator into the position of an ‘appraising heterosexual male’ by adopting technical camera strategies which objectify women. By the use of close ups, point of view shots and reaction shots of the male, it encourages him to be identified as the subject whereas the use of long shots and tilts up the body of a woman often from a male point of view, encourages the audience to look at her as an object rather than a subject. In the film ‘Halloween’ at the start, a point of view shot is used to put the audience into the killers eyes, however this could also be an example of the male gaze in action as the audience is made to look at Judith Myers with no clothes on from a males point of view which instantly objectifies her. A similar scenario is also shown further on in the film which could again be an example of the male gaze where again it appears to be a point of view shot from the killer looking in through a window at Annie who is also in a state of undress. This is an example of Laura Mulvey’s theory as it encourages the audience to look at the woman as an object rather than a subject. There is also an example of this shown in both the films ‘The Shining’ and ‘Eden Lake’. In The Shining, we see the main protagonist Jack looking at a naked woman in the bathtub, however this is then challenged when the attratcive women turns into an old corpse, therefore challenging the male gaze. In Eden Lake, we see the leader of the gang Brett looking at Jenny in a bikini through a pair of binoculars, both of which portray the idea of the male gaze as again the audience is lead to objectify women and deny them of any subjectivity however this is slightly contradicted in the Eden Lake scene as after the make gaze is shown the camera then goes straight back to Jenny making her the subject more than an object.

Despite the horror genre portraying elements of a sexist ‘regime’ of viewing women, it does however tend to portray a different regime of viewing when it comes to looking at the figure of the “final girl”. By having the figure of a final girl within horror films it exchanges the sadistic objectification of women seen in the male gaze and instead invites a masochistic identification of women. In the film ‘Halloween’ the main protagonist and also the final girl is the character Laurie. Her character in particular is an example of a female character that isn’t objectified by the camera and instead shows androgynous features such as a gender-free name and less feminised clothing. This is an example of horror’s representation of gender challenging dominant representations as Laurie is not a character affected by ‘the male gaze’ and is also not confined to a particular stereotyped gender category and although she is not a strong character, she does however overcome the monster and ultimately survives in the film. A similar situation is also shown in The Shining as Wendy is also the main protagonist and not only defends herself from the monster Jack, but also manages to escape with Danny.

Overall I believe that because there are a majority of horror films that do contain the figure of a "final girl" it doesn't particularly follow the most dominant representations of gender and instead challenges them in many ways, therefore putting across a more positive attitude towards gender in the media. However, I believe there are still many horror films that will still tend to follow the most dominant representations of gender in the media however looking at the three films we have studied in class I believe there are elements which show that this is starting to level out.