Buried

Directed by Rodrigo Cortes.

Plot Summary
A man wakes up in a coffin to find only darkness; with only a lighter and a mobile phone screen to light the musky tomb, he comes to the realization he's trapped. A film totally focused around a man trapped in a box seems like a risky idea, but during entrapment he encounters various nightmares. Contacting people via video message and phone is one of the main aspects of the film, I'd go as far as saying its a glorified orange mobile advertisement. On one occasion a snake enters the coffin. This is more of a dark suspense thriller than a horror, but the increasing anger and proximate chlostrophobia make this film a tense watch.

The Final

Directed by Joey Stewart.

Plot Summary
The film is set in the present day, at an American high school, where 5 outcast students are bullied by the "popular" crew at school. They eventually get sick of the torment presented to them everyday, and decide to take revenge by holding a fancy dress party with a sickening twist, intending to kill them all. They spike the punch at the party, knocking out all of the guests. When they awaken, they are chained up and are told by the conspirators that they are going to be tortured and traumatised. Chaos erupts as the party goers and hosts all suffer either by being killed or severely disfigured, leaving just Kurtis, who is seen as cool but also friendly, as the only one who escapes without severe injuries.

Trailer Analysis
The trailer begins with a shot of an ordinary school setting, with an image of school lockers and a classroom, which would not normally be seen as the basis of a terrifyingly scary horror film. This setting contrasts with the events and setting which is later to come in the film. Some background information is also given as the audience sees a student being terrorised and bullied, which would help the audience to understand the reasons for what is going to occur later on. The lighting also adds to the contrast, as ambient, natural lighting is used to begin with, opposed to dark, low-key lighting as the horrific events begin. This may also be used to show that from an everyday situation, such as school, the bullying and situations which occur could lead to a drastic turn of events, with sickening outcomes, this could make the film seem as though it could potentially happen in real life, terrifying the audience. Props such as machine guns have been used in the trailer as well as menacing masks of clowns and gas masks to present the horror genre to the audience, as they are things typically associated with horror films. As the trailer gets deep into the horrific events that occur in the film, jump cuts are used from inside the builing, where the party is taking place to outside, as someone is approaching the scene, with the potential to save the characters from the events they are about to be put through, this leaves the audience wondering what the outcome of the film will be, and similar to a cliffhanger, the trailer ends without the audience knowing if the characters live or die, persuading them to watch the film to find out.

The Last Exorcism

Directed by Daniel Stamm.

Plot Summary
This movie follows the traditions of recent films, in the use of 'found' footage. The footage is used to represent a documentary following Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a preacher who performs exorcisms, and although losing faith in this, he is convinced to perform one more, for the entertainment of reality TV. Cotton then performs a 'scam' exorcism on the farmers daughter, and convinces the father that she is saved. However things become more peculiar, and she is found in a catastrophic state, and admitted to hospital. They then find that she is actually pregnant, following an attack on her brother with a knife. Therefore an actual exorcism takes place, and Cotton then discovers that the girl is actually possessed by a demon, and so the gore continues to unfold.

Trailer Analysis
The trailer begins in the daylight, setting the scene and showing a man in his car who seems to be going to somewhere unfamiliar, the trailer gradually gets darker to represent the way the film gets creepier as it goes on, which is conventional for horror films as they usually start off quite normal and ordinary. Captions of text have been used to give the audience a hint of what the film is about and what the topic is, for example, 'Reverend Cotton Marcus has performed over 47 excorcisms'. A close up of a letter is also used to help the reader quickly understand what the film will be about. There are a number of different camera angles used in the trailer, such as a canted angle to keep it interesting and ensure the audience is gripped to the action. Throughout the trailer some of the camera work is hand held which adds to the unknowingness of the film and suggests uncomfortableness and distress. The shots are fast paced, short and there are a lot of them in quick succession to heighten the sense of tension and drama. There are also quick flashes between the shots to break them up. The colour scheme which has been used is fairly ordinary dull colours, such as cream, grey white and brown, but this is mixed in with a bold red colour at various points in the trailers to stick with the convention of horror films and as an effective technique to scare the reader. Close up, fuzzy shots have been used also to add to the atmosphere and intended effect on the audience.

The Horde

Directed by Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher.

Plot Summary
The Horde is a French film, which is set in the present day and based in Paris. The film begins with the discovery of a murdered detective, who is found by his fellow collegues and friends, who then decide to take the law into their own hands and seek revenge on the violent gang who killed their friend. They find the gang in an abandoned building where they are hiding and just as they are about to seek revenge by torturing and killing them, a swarm of zombies appear, trying to kill all of them, and the two groups. the gang and the corrupt police officers have to work together in order to survive.

Trailer Analysis
The trailer of The Horde presents the film as a thriller horror. The trailer begins with a shot of a group of men in balaclava's and then an establishing shot of what seems to be a block of flats or apartments. The lighting is low-key and quite dull throughout which is typical of horror films as they are prodominantly set at night, in order to maintain there scariness. Guns and explosions are used to show the film is fast moving and exciting and these are also things which suggest a thriller horror film. A birds-eye angle is used to show the people on the ground and then a medium close up shot is used to show the audience that the people are actually zombies, this will also help the audience to decide whether they want to watch the full length film or not, as they may or may not like films which feature slash horror, and are unrealistic and unbelievable. There is a quick series of shots from a punch up leading to a man falling down the stairs, to an aerial shot of a winding staircase, then to a shot of the outside of the building, to lightning in the sky. This fast sequence shows the audience the action that is taking place and builds up the excitement and suspense of the film. There are fades to black in between the shots, which make the film seem even darker and scarier. The movement in the trailer gets much faster as the zombies appear and there are flashes of the film, showing the invasion of the zombies, with chaos as blood is everywhere and there are also people being bitten, hurt and tortured. This is conventional of horror films although this type of thriller horror is a genre of it's own and may not appeal to all fans of horror, making the trailer even more important.

Hostel Trailer

An Interesting Trailer

 

Analysis

Hostel is an interesting choice to study when developing ideas of horror film and horror film trailers. It is a conventional film in the horror genre, as it includes the expected features of a horror, such as blood, death, good and bad characters and highly dramatic scenes. The trailer starts with dim lighted shots of the creepy setting with close ups of water dripping to set the dingy, scary scene. Captions which relate to the setting, there is a place' are used to give the audience a sense of the plot. The text which is used is orange and quite bright compared with the dim, dark background. The texts starts big, jumping out at the audience and then gets smaller. This could represent the audience being drawn into the film, which would immediately grab their attention. After the first caption there is a long shot of a man wearing a type of builders uniform with a transparant mask on, he is holding a hose and is placed in the centre of the shot, showing that something creepy will happen involving characters or a character dressed in this way. It gives the audience a quick feel of what the film will be about. There is then a second caption, 'where all your darkest' and then a medium close up of a shirtless man having a cloth taken off his head to reveal his face which is facing slightly away from the camera, this could suggest his terror as he is avoiding something. The next caption 'sickest fantasies' reveals a lot about the plot, as this is when the audience realise that the man is going to experience inhuman suffering. A link could be made at this point with the idea of construction, as suggested by the man with the hose. This would then make the viewer wonder whether it is the terrified looking man which is going to be constructed on. There are then shots of tools, and more captions to show the events which are to take place will be truly disturbing, this also links in with the genre of horror as in most horror films there are specific weapons which are used against the victims in the films. There are many shots showing many different characters, some of which look like they are trying to espcape and some which look as though they are involved in the twisted events. This shows that, as with some horrors where there is usually one evil character, or monster, this film seems to break with conventions to a certain extent as there are a number of evil characters.

Initial Ideas

Our first ideas as a group:

• Physcological horror.
• Set in Lowestoft - historical, haunted town.
• Characters to find something Eg. Writing or a diary - one of the characters to become obsessed by this.
• Filmed at night time, dusk, no one around.
• As it gets darker the events get creepier and creepier.
• Handheld camera shots.
• Characters are tourists - do not know the area particularly well.
• People get lost.
• Lighting - night vision, torches.
• An unknown figure appears.
• Camera cuts at the end of the trailer.
• Running - desperate - trying to escape.
• Shaking.
• Finding a dead body.

First Idea
Three young people driving around lowestoft late at night. For some reason they get lost (undecided as to why yet). Two people then leave the car to go to the beach/cliffs. The camera sees a mysterious, shady character in the background. The people go back to the car but then realise they have left something on the beach and one person goes back to retrieve it. Whilst he is gone he comes across a buried dead body with a plastic bag covering his head and runs back to the car to get the other two people to show them what he has found. The body is gone. They go back to the car and the person who witnessed the dead body is fixated on it, and can't stop thinking and worrying about it but the other two don't believe that he has really seen it and laugh and joke about it. They look in the car and see that the body the person saw laying dead earlier is sitting faced forward in their car, possibly breathing, but also not alive. All of the characters then run away, deeply scared. There are quick camera movements of them running , the camera looks up and comes across a dark figure in front of them and then cuts out.

Film Distribution

Distribution = Marketing + Duplication + Getting film into the cinema (finding an audience).

The Role of the Distributor

The distributor of a film is it's lead into the movie market place and they have to decide who they think the audience of the film is and who it will appeal to, why they would want to watch the film and how they are going to appeal to the target audience of the film. The distributor has to decide on the elements of the film which will help to sell it and attract audiences to watch the film, such as a USP (unique selling point). For example, the cast of the film could be the unique selling point, such as Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds, as he is a well known actor and has appeared in other films which have been highly commended, therefore fans of him are likely to want to see his films. The unique selling point of the film could also be the genre or the originality. The distributor needs to be extremely clear of it's target audience, the average age for people going to the cinema is between 15 and 24, therefore film producers need to base their film and it's marketing around this fact.The average age for going to the cinema is between 15 and 24, therefore the film distributor needs to be very clear on the target audience for the film and the market it will appeal to before deciding whether it is suitable for showing in the cinema, based on how many sales it is likely to make.

Blockbuster films such as Spiderman, Shrek and Titanic are all high budget therefore they can afford to spend a lot of money on distribution as they know they will profit once the film is released.

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

In order to make our teaser trailers we used the programmes and sites of the logos shown above. These are all fairly cheap or free, which was useful as we had to produce our trailer with virtually no budget. Due to the easy accessibilty of these products it is now very simple to create new media products with very little expense spared.

We used Youtube, which allows audiences to watch free uploaded videos, in order to research existing trailers, which would help us in the development of our own. We could see which trailers were effective and use some of the ideas of what worked and what didn't in our own work. We also accessed this website from home or college computers and macs, which was cost effecient and easy, as the products were already there for us to use. We recorded all of our findings on Blogger, where we kept a clear record of everything we did in terms of research and preparation. This was helpful as we couldn't lose this information, which we would probably do with sheets of paper, and it was quickly accessible and in an order, therefore we could quickly find the information again. Although there were a few occasions where my blogger site wasn't working properly, for example, trying to put gaps in texts and moving pictures, in general, it was very helpful for recording everything we needed to for the project.

We began filming using a video camera and tripod which we borrowed from college, this was also cost-free and easy to get, and we bought an inexpensive tape to record on. We borrowed the camera a number of times until we had done all the filming we needed to, which in total was 4 times. It was easy to use as the buttons on the camera say what they are and information also comes up on the screen. Once we had finished filming we needed to capture our footage and the best way of doing this was on Final Cut Pro, a video editing program we could access from college. I found this program confusing compared to programmes I have used before, such as Windows Movie Maker although I learned how to cut sections of the footage and edit the filters, controls and motions of the clip. I would say that some members of our group picked up how to use this program better than others. We then made the soundtrack to our trailer on Garageband, another program i found difficult to use, especially as I do not know much about music generally.

To make my magazine cover and film poster I used Adobe Photoshop, which I think was the best progam to use as there are many techniques to use to change and edit work as you are designing it. There are also a lot of functions on the program therefore there are a lot of options in the making of our products. I found Photoshop fairly easy to use as I have used in previous work, such as media coursework last year, although I still learned new things on there and developed my skills further.

The programmes as a group and indivually I have used have been important in the development of our trailer, and without programmes such as Final Cut Pro and Photoshop we wouldn't have been able to produce work at the standard we have. I have learnt a lot about programmes which I didn't know existed before and have developed skills on these programmes which I can now use in other subjects and for other things I do. The programmes have also made me become a little more creative as I have seen the things that can be done on them and have produced work which I am very happy with.

What we have learnt from audience feedback.

In the process of producing a media product, it is very important to recieve feedback from others throughout the process to ensure that what you are producing is accurate and engaging for an audience. It is best to get feedback from others who are in the same position as you as they will know what critisms are fair and what would be asking too much. Also, it would be important to get feedback from people who do not know about the technical side of media, as for example with our trailer, many people who visit the cinema do not know about camerawork and technical codes, they are simply there for entertainment, we would want to know from their point of view if our work would be engaging and exciting and if it fits in with what they would expect to see in a horror film or trailer.

We gathered audience feedback in a number of ways, for example just asking people to look at our work so far and tell us which parts were good and what needed improving. We also did a screening of our trailer to the class, in which they filled out a questionnaire telling us what bits were conventional of horror films, which were the most engaging sections of the trailer and what they thought could be improved upon. Another way we recieved audience feedback was from asking our parents what they thought of our work and what advice they would give us to improve it. As our parents know us well, they would understand our full potential more and would be able to give us realistic ideas that they thought we could achieve.

Mainly from the questionnaires from the first screening, we got a lot of both critical and positive feedback. A few people said that some parts of the trailer didn't make much sense, particularly the letters scene in the trailer, they didn't know what the significance of the letters was. This was a problem as we originally had a lot more footage for that section planned and recorded which would have given the audience a much better understanding of it  however we had to cut it down significantly due to the time we were allowed to use. In the end we decided that as a teaser trailer is only meant to give short snippets of the film and not give the plot away, it would be okay to leave it how it was. Although we didn't change this section after the audience feedback, it made us question our ideas.

The feedback also suggested that we needed to add more music and sound, particularly at the start of our trailer. We responded to this by adding in more sounds, including a clip of Winston Churchill speaking, marching band snare beats and an old aeroplane sound which are all linked to the theme of war, which we were trying to portray in our teaser trailer as the reason behind the masked mans appearance. We also got some positive feedback, the most promising of which happened whilst our trailer was being shown. In various sections of the trailer a few of the audience members jumped and screamed, proving to us that our trailer was having the effect on the potential audience which we intended for it to have.

The effectiveness of our main product with the ancillary texts?

When in the process of film production the distributor needs to decide on ways to advertise the film and make it as appealing to the target audience it is aimed at as possible. They use advertising such as television ads, ads in cinemas before another film (in which case the film which is being shown in the cinema would be likely to be in the same or a similar genre of the trailer which they are showing, as they need to ensure that they are promoting the film to the correct target audience), internet advertisements, billboards and posters in magazines. The types of advertising is different depending on the potential audience for a film and how much money the film is likely to make. If it is a low budget film there will not be as much marketing as in a blockbuster as the distributors wouldn't want to spend too much money advertising the film as it wouldn't lessen their potential profits when the film hits the cinema. Often they rely heavily on word of mouth from the public in order to advertise their films. Blockbuster films such as "Harry Potter" and "Toy Story" spend a lot more money on promoting their films as they know that, as the films as so popular and highly anticipated, they will bring in a lot of money in the cinemas, therefore they can afford to take the risk.  

An existing film poster 

As the Harry Potter films are so well known, the poster advertising one of the later films only has very minimal words included on it, as straight away from looking at the poster the audience would recognise what it was. Also, the words Harry Potter have been abbreviated to HP as the series is so well known. The picture is simply a close up of the main character of the film as this is the person the films are most associated with and the image of him would grab the audiences attention as they would recognise who it was and what the film which is being advertised is. If they were a fan of the films, this poster is all that would be needed to ensure that they would go to the cinema to see the film.

It is important within an ad campaign to keep various themes ongoing. For example, a logo which appears on all posters and adverts, including trailers, to help the audience remember the film and keep it fresh in their minds. This would be the films identity and would also help an audience instantly recognise the film. As well as logos, other themes such as fonts, colour schemes, and significant props could be used as a films 'identity' as they would be the thing which links all the products of the film together.



Our Marketing Campaign

We decided to go with the classification of 15. This means that our film would be suitable for anyone over the age of 15. We decided this as we thought if our classification was 12 then it would limit us on how scary our film could potentially be and if we chose 18 then many people who are interested in horror films and are likely to go to the cinema (i'd say mainly boys from the age of about 15 to early 20's, wouldn't be able to go and view the film.

There are various clear links between my trailer and my poster, which would help an audience identify the film. Firstly, the figure of the gask mask man is shown on the poster, slightly hidden on the right hand side of the page. This links in with the trailer as Diederich is a figure which is hidden away in the house of a couple who have just moved in and he seems to be just creeping out, in order to carry out whatever it is that he is planning on doing in the film. The lighting is quite dim which is similar to our trailer as in the end of it where the scary scenes start happening the lighting is quite dim and blurred. My film poster is fairly simplistic, not including very much, which highlights the fact that our trailer doesn't give too much of the film away as well, it leaves the audience guessing. I have also included the signiture Diederich logo (below) to stick with the films individual identification, and the red which connotes blood and danger.

If a film is on the cover of a film magazine it will be extremely helpful in attracting the audience, as this will be the first thing they see, catching their eye and wanting them to read more about the film. The image which is put onto a film magazine would have to be linked closely into the colour scheme of the film and stick to the same themes and logos of the trailer and poster, to keep up with the films identification, as the audience needs to be able to know what the film is straight away by specific links.





The ways in which our media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

In the production of our horror film trailer we aimed to both use and challenge the conventions of horror film trailers. Although we wanted to create something original, we knew that there were certain aspects of horror films and conventions of horror trailers that we needed to stick to in order to ensure the audience were still aware that our films genre was horror. If we made something too different, many of the target audience wouldn't understand what we were trying to show. "Diederich" sticks to the forms and conventions of horror trailers as it uses a concept of a 'mysterious figure' in an ordinary household to portray horrific events unfolding and uses the traditional 'good vs evil' theme. It includes two innocent characters which is traditional of horror films, particularly as one of them is female and would be considered weak and vulnerable against the gas masked figure. In this sense our trailer does stick to the conventions of horror films.

 

We used night vision in our trailer, as in paranormal activity to create a sense of tension and suspense. We used this technique in the part of the trailer when the pace got faster and when the scariest scenes took place to show the change in atmosphere. Although the night vision in paranormal activity is clearer, due to the quality of the cameras, i think the blurriness of our shot adds to the feel of the clip, as it suggests disorientation and terror. The darkness of the shot also suggests that something could be happening elsewhere but cannot be seen, darkness is often linked with frightening goings on.

The setting of a house implies that old secrets and the past could potentially be unearthed. A home is an everyday place to be and most people would feel safe in their own home therefore it is ironic for a horror film to be set in it and could make the film more scary to an audience. Our trailer is similar to 'the strangers' in this sense as it is also set in a home which is taken over by scary figures.

Although these shots, from the film 'Orphan' and from our production of 'Diederich' are not the same in the sense of camera work and shot types, they are both showing the opening of a door. This is a very effective technique in horror film trailers, as it shows the characters going ino the unknown and the audience would question what they are going to find lurking behind the door. They would then be intrigued to carry on watching the trailer and maybe watch the film.

There are many similarities between the trailer we produced and exisiting horror film trailers, therefore, although we did intend to stop our trailer from becoming samey and conventional, we did stick to the rules enough to be able to relate it to other films, which I think makes our trailer successful.

Diederich - Finished Teaser Trailer