Reflection of the whole process

Reflection

EVALUATION QUESTION 4

EVALUATION QUESTION 3

EVALUATION QUESTION 2

EVALUATION QUESTION 1

Feedback for our trailer- first edit

After posting our trailer up on our facebook page this is the feedback we have recieved! There were mixed comments, however the overall impression we got was that generally people were impressed with the trailer. From the audience feedback I found that people were mostly impressed with the editing and continuity of the trailer, the visual effects, special effects such as the killings (throat cut) and the use of sound.

However the areas we could improve on were the audio of the trailer (fixing the sound levels- decreasing the music and increasing dialogue at some points, mainly the end of the trailer as the music blocked out the dialogue at some points and the credits/titles at the end of the trailer could be improved as people were commenting saying they were basic.
Therefore, for our final edit we are going to encorperate the feedback we got into our trailer to produce an effective horror trailer.

Trailer Completed!

Production: Final day of filming- On the heath

Today we filmed our final shots on the heath, we chose to go there as we needed to show our protagonist in an isolated, empty space and the heath is perfect for this at the moment as it is full of bare trees, woods and on camera looks like an empty woods. This fit's with Burton's theory as he says that locations/settings often follow a particular theme in that the places horror films are set are normally isolated and secluded from the rest of society.

In order to experiment with different angles our friend helped us to climb up a tree which meant we were able to film at a variety of different angles and use different shot types. For example we filmed a wide long shot at a high angle of a couple that were about to be victims of the killer, the use of the high angle allows the viewer to feel as though they are an onlooker into the action, almost as if they are spying.

Production: Filming location- Frank's house

 
 Key lighting- low key lighting,
                                                      shadows, atmospheric

effect of clown mask..

Production: Film poster final version

After making several versions of our film poster using the same image, I decided it would be good to experiment and play around more with the image as I had not yet tried to alter the contrast/exposure/colour and tones of the image as we particularly liked the original version.

Magazine cover

Final version of film poster

After making many changes to the original film poster we created, we have finally made a poster we pleased with and think reflects are trailer in an effective way encorperating the conventions of a horror movie poster in.

Production: Filming the cut throat scene

As one of our killing scenes we decided to have a throat cut in which you would see the arm reaching our and slitting the victims throat however, apart from the torso, arm and hand the killer's (Cameron) identity 

would not be known therefore creating an engima code in our trailer.

In order to conduct the throat cut we followed this tutorial on youtube which allowed us to understand how exactly we would make the blood splatter out creating an effective and realistic shot. Combined with this Christine Blundell's make up academy trip also came in very handy as it allowed us to put our makeup techniques to practice by concealing the plaster of paris on Miranda's neck making it look like a realistic throat cut.

We collected the following ingredients:

Fake blood, Plastic tubing, liquid latex, plaster of paris, a garden sprayer, baby powder and concealing makeup.

Below are some shots of the filming process

Planning for production: Filming the office scene

For tomorrows filming we are planning to film the first couple of shots in which we see Cameron's work colleagues (journalists) being spoken to by Detective Matthews about the recent murders/abduction of girls. For these shots we are planning to get some point of view shots from Cameron's perspective, and over the shoulder shots of the detective speaking at a high angle to show his level of authority and the significance of his speech to the journalists about the deaths. 

Photo's from filming: 

This is the layout in which we filmed the shots, with the detective stood at the head of the table overlooking everyone. We chose this layout because it creates a tense, serious atmosphere as everyone is gathered together- we aim to have short clips of dialogue playing over the top of a sound track which enhances the serious mood of the shots.

This is the angle in which we shot the point of view shots from, this is to put the viewer into Cameron's shoes and give them a feel of what it's like to be him seeing thing's from his perspective. This also provides a variation in the shot types.

Audience feedback: Facebook page

So far we have received a considerable amount of very helpful feedback from our facebook page which has allowed us to improve the quality and standard of our work.
Firstly, the image selected for our film poster recieved positive comments from several people

 Many people commented on the composition of this picture a swell as the effectiveness of the low key lighting and the shadows cast upon our actors face, as well as the beam of light in the background of the picture

This is our production sequence, as you can see below we received lot's of comments and feedback for this. Some of the most useful included the one's that included direct advice on what to change/ exactly how we could improve it, see examples below. 

''Amazing production sequence it looks really professional, like adam says the Deceptive Film section is really strong. My only suggestion would be to perhaps edit the'Thriller Productions' part, as although it looks good on its own, I think it breaks the continuity of the sequence as it is allot lighter than the other sections''

''I agree maybe have a black background''

Love it, agree with the jarring of the second seq though I don't think many companies use the whole scene for their logos (I'm probs wrong there though) , perhaps a fade in, my head felt like it should have lasted a second longer with the clouds continuing over the titles

In response to these suggestions, we made an new version of the production sequence encorperating everyone's advice and adding some new features to it. Overall we were much happier with the updated version

Production work: Film poster ideas

In order to get inspiration for our film poster we decided to look at other posters within the horror genre and found the following:

We particularly liked the poster for Gamer because of the creative effect used on it- the idea of two faces showing on one poster would be reflective of our plot in which the protaganist has two sides to him/ a split personality and we liked the idea of showing the two sides to his face.
However, we did feel this could give the plot away slightly as it's a horror trailer showing two of the same face's would suggest more than intended about the characters role/ plot of the film.

We also liked certain aspects of the poster 'Mirrors' for example the colour scheme and font' dark colours such as red and black lend themselves to the horror genre and immediately imply darkness, blood and death. The simplicity of the poster is also good as there is not too much going on which allows you to focus on the image and title which already tells you enough about the plot- no more pictures or text are required.

Production: Facebook page teaser

Social Networking Campain: Audience Feedback

In order to get some audience feedback from our target audience and to raise awareness of trailer we have set up a Facebook page in which we have posted our ideas for production logo's, image choices for magazine and front covers and teaser posters which all give our audience a taste of our film and what to expect from the trailer.

Production: Social Media Campaign

This is our facebook page that we have created as part of our social media campaign. Sites such as facebook and twitter are very effective promotional tools in a trailer campaign as they allow the film to be promoted quickly through a wide range of people and in this way excitement and anticipation is created through sharing teaser clips, print based designs (movie posters and teaser posters) and discussion and updates of upcoming events to promote the trailer.