Magazine research

(Click)
My analysis from Empire Magazine has helped me take into account what makes magazines stand out and look interesting. When creating my magazine research I will take into account all the points mentioned above.

Scripting

In most of the trailers that I have seen, the most common convention throughout all of them would be the amount of dialogue that is said. It is important that only one line is said throughout the trailer as this helps to create anticipation to the audience. Therefore in our trailer, we will make sure we try and use one line with each character.

Characters/Target Audience

In our trailer, there are 3 characters that will be shown:

• Doctor Lemmings - David Ajala

• Maya - Hannah Ajala

• Donna - Emily

Our main reason for choosing these characters is that our USP(Unique Selling Point) within our trailer is that the main victim isn't a traditional white lead character which is shown through most films such as the orphan,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ywOPNNii9w

the orphanage or,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6pPzh6Bd4

the strangers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1TBlPelvbE

Target Audience

The target audience for our new film is 15+, potentially for a national/global audience. In order for us to acheive this we managed to take the time out to do a questionnaire for 10 people aged 15+ both male and female. From this questionnaire, I hope to understand what people from my target audience expect, so that I am able to meet the requirements that they have.

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Hannah researched into our target audience who would preferably be aged 15-28. We obviously noticed that the characters in our trailer were older and more mature but yet, it wouldn't really be aimed at a lot of adults as it is rated certificate 15.

Themes

The main themes to our film trailer are torture and ghostly. Films that had helped us choose this kind of themes are Saw(torture) and the unborn(ghostly). We firstly chose Saw as it is a popular film which is aimed at people aged 18+, and the thing that had stuck out to us the most is how realistic they had managed to show torture and gore.

Saw

The unborn

Secondly, The Unborn is also another film that had inspired us to choose the ghostly film because we liked the way the film had managed to create tension and fear through the different ways e.g sound, dialogue, shots and mise en scene.

From our inspirations by the Unborn and Saw, we would firstly try and make it realistic as we can and secondly, we would try to use sound, shots and mise en scene to heighten our audiences anticipation and to create a tense atmosphere in our trailer.

Film Title

The title 'Friday the 13th' is shown boldly with a sharp font, this is makes it easier to catch peoples attention. The font also suggests the time period, in this case, an old 20th Century feel. It is also written in red, so the title connotes danger and blood, so this gives the audience a little hint that there will be gore on 'Friday the 13th'.

This helped us decide our film title 'WARD 13' as we wanted to relate to something specific. The number 13 also seems to also be unlucky when relating it to the horror genre, so this would tell the audience the type of film being shown.

For the font of our title, we tried out different types of font to see which would look more suitable for our trailer. The important things that we tried to do was to make sure that it looked modern and kind of scientific but at the same time try and give off a horror feel to it.

Our research had a great influence on us, from Friday the 13th we had taken the idea of relating to a specific event but chose to do something based on a place.

Synopsis

Ward 13

Tagline: Promise is most given when the least is said

Based in Homerton Hospital, the story focuses on an enstranged relationship between a Doctor and a terminally ill patient. The trailer begins with
Doctor Lemmings, 27 in the office going through work as his colleague, Donna approaches him with bad news; his favourite patient Maya,, aged 13 has just died from a terminal illness. Doctor Lemmings always visited Maya and they shared a good friendship. Maya didn’t have family and saw Doctor Lemmings as a father figure. Donna dumps Maya’s file in front of him giving him a dirty look and also tells him that he is working in Ward 13 tonight. Doctor Lemmings looks at the file then throws it to the side. He takes his job really seriously and is working all night. He wants a promotion to make his wife proud. He is the last to leave the hospital and as he walks outside of the dark, isolated hospital, he puts his briefcase on the floor in order to put on his jacket and sees the file he thought he threw away sticking out. On the file written in blood it says ‘You promised’. He smirks thinking it’s Donna. He scrunches up the file and throws it away. Footsteps follow him but as he looks back he sees no-one and nothing. Someone taps on his shoulder. As he turns back he has a mortifying experience. Doctor Lemmings is now lying on a hospital bed with Maya resting her head on his chest and singing. Someone else places a cloth over Doctor Lemmings head then blackout.

Setting

For the main setting of our trailer, we felt that the best place that our film would be set in would be a hospital. Films such as 'The Eye' and 'Halloween 2' had inspired us to choose this type of location. The use of low key lightings and long shots of the area to create a tense atmosphere had attracted us to make out trailer similar to them.

The Eye

Halloween 2

The second setting in our trailer would have to take plac

e in a room, this is where Doctor Lemmings gets tied up in a dark and mysterious room/basement. So for this we would have to make sure that we would use a low key lighting and an abandoned room which creates an isolated feel to it.

Genre in film

Horror Iconography and Ideology

1) What visual and written codes are being used?

Saw

• Extreme close up of the mouth suggests that the person is being tortured,
• The title is in white and is against a black background to catch people's attention,

• At first glance, the poster creates a scary atmosphere drawing the audience,
• The tongs used to keep the mouth opened suggests that the person is trapped and it could also show vulnerability as the person is unable to move,
• The fact that he has no teeth suggests that the theme of the film is gruesome,
• The tag-line shows when the film will be released, in this case Halloween,

Dracula

• The statue in the image shows us the period of time that the film is set in,
• The name of the film is 'Dracula' which is easily known to the audience because it is the biggest and in the centre of the poster,
• The text used in the poster anchors the idea that it is a horror film as it is written in blood which suggests that the film is bloody,

• The colour scheme of the posters is beige and red. The red is a common convention used in horror movies,
• The tag-line suggests that the sub-genre of the film is also romance,

2) What information do they provide about the films?

Dracula

Saw

• They provide the production company, 'Columbia Pictures'
• The name of the director (to promote)
• The author of 'Dracula' (Bram Stoker)
• The release date

3) What other information might you have expected but is missing?

• For both posters, I expected a certificate to indicate the appropriate age for viewing,
• The names of actors or actresses who star in the film such as the poster below,

4) In what ways do these posters create a sense of enigma?

Saw

• Doesn't show the full face of the character on the poster, this leads us to question who the person is,
• Makes us wonder why the person is being tortured,

Dracula

• Even though the full face is shown, it doesn't show the proper face of Dracula, again this leads us to question what his appearance looks like.

5) How are the film producers trying to create a sense of danger and equilibrium?

• For saw, they use a close up of graphic images to catch peoples attention. The close up enables us to put ourselves in that persons shoes giving us a sense of danger.
• As for Dracula, the font of Dracula already creates an eerie atmosphere and the fact that the statue is staring directly at us also adds to the feeling.

6) What genre to these films belong to?

• Horror

However, within films there are subcategories within particular genres. For example:

Saw

• Crime
• Thriller
• Mystery

Dracula

• Thriller
• Romance

7) What are the generic conventions that are at work in these posters?

Saw

• Low key lighting,
• Graphic image,
• Font type of the title,
• close up image,

Dracula

• Bloody title,
• mid shot of the character,
• Colour scheme of red,

Key elements in a Genre

Protagonists

• Charles Bromly (Vampire)
• Audrey

Stock Characters

• Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke)
• Chris Caruso (Vince Colosimo)
• Elvis (Willem Dafoe)

Plot

• A pandemic disease has turned most of the world's human population into vampires. As human numbers dwindle, the need for blood becomes desperate. When deprived of blood for extended periods, vampires degenerate into subsiders: aggressive bat-like creatures.
• A covert group of humans led by Audrey rescues and hides humans from vampire patrols while they attempt to win allies amongst the vampires
• They meet Elvis, a man cured of vampirism by brief exposure to sunlight while being thrown into water.
• Edward, Elvis, and Audrey meet with Chris and ask him to help spread the cure.
• Chris has finally discovered a viable blood substitute and does not want a cure to become widespread. He calls in a vampire patrol which captures Audrey while Elvis and Edward escape into hiding.
• Edward turns himself in and goads Charles into attacking him. Edward uses the now-cured Charles to cure a group of soldiers experiencing the beginning of subsider aggression.
• They are confronted by Chris, who kills the few cured soldiers to hide the evidence of the cure. Elvis arrives and rescues Edward and Audrey by killing Chris. The three survivors then drive away into the sunrise with a voice-over by Edward stating that they have a cure and can change others back.

Themes

• Vampire
• Medical

Icon

• Blood

Applying recognisable conventions of trailers

In order to play with the recognisable conventions of trailers, in groups, we came up with ideas about how to market and promote 'Bloodshed High'.

Before we started to storyboard, 'Bloodshed High' we identified the important aspects of trailers, such as soundtrack, actors and directors, production or what to include in shots . We discussed what a USP (Unique Selling Point) is and identified different selling points in films.

Me, Hannah Ajala and Samson Ruwangu came upon many decisions in how to promote 'Bloodshed High'. We started off with the plot of the film in order to help us with what the USP of the film should be. Our main Unique Selling Point are:

• a British setting instead of a typical American set,
• a male victim rather than a female.

Secondly, we decided that our target audience would be teenagers aged 15+ therefore we looked into ways were we could attract them. For instance, we chose to use something similar to Paramore (or a soundtrack in the rock genre) as our soundtrack since most of their audience were teenagers and released a soundtrack for the movie 'Twilight' which was popular movie for our target audience and for non-diagetic music, we chose a kind of an eerie sound to it.

Soundtrack

Non-diagetic

Finally we decided on using Lionsgate as our production company because rather than going for companies such as twisted pictures we wanted to bring something new.

From this task, I learnt that:

• trailers are the most effective ways of attracting audiences,
• shows the best parts of the movie without giving too much away and,
• audience expectations are the key.

Film Posters

The two main colours that are being presented in this poster are black, red and white. In my opinion, the colour black always relates to the horror genre. The white in the film poster, allows us to see the person and trap more, and it could also be that the person is in the spotlight, meaning that she is being watched. In addition, the character in the poster looks like she's in an empty room and looks completely helpless.

The main title 'Saw IV' is in red, this is also related to the horror genre. The title is placed in the middle of the poster making it more visible to the audience. The font of the title are in capitals making it look strong, therefore it is representing power and strength. The colour red also symbolises blood, so it informs the audience that the film will be bloody or gruesome. The title also tells us that the film can make people grip their seats as there have been previous saw movies.

The tagline 'its a trap' anchors the image's meaning that the person is trap. I can tell this because the chains on her feet are visible and the machine seems to be a trap. Lastly, the main character sitting on the machine is in danger, this is easy to say because of her clothes which are red and red symbolises danger or blood.

Concepts of horror movie

In todays lesson, we shower stormed different concepts of our horror movie. Overall, we came up with 2 ideas for the synopsis and from them we chose how we were going to use sound, editing and mise-en-scene.

The first synopsis, is about a true story that happened during the 20 century where there had been kidnaps happening for no reason.

For the sound we decided that we use eerie music, heartbeats, the usual bus sounds.

The problem with this synopsis was getting the right setting and the right props for the film.

The second synopsis would be set in a hospital, a patient who is possessed would have worms coming out of her mouth. The problem with this was how we would be able to use a hospital and how we would be able to make the worms look realistic enough.

Introduction

One of the requirements for our coursework is that we our to work in groups of 3. My group consists of: me and

• Hannah Ajala

www.13hanaja.blogspot.com

Analyzing a trailer

What point in the trailer are we told the name of the film? Why is this?

• The name of the film is given to us at around 3/4 of the trailer.
• It is given to us here, so that we are able to associate our anticipation and tension with the title.

Why are we told the who is starring in the film? Ho

w is this information given to us? Why?

• We are told who stars in the film since it indicates which actors are involved in the film. By telling us who is starring in the film, fans of the actors would want to watch them therefore increasing the popularity of the film.
• In the trailer, we are not given any names, the main point in this trailer is to build anticipation and to capture our attention rather than promote any actors or directors.

What type of action from the film do we see?

The type of action from the film can be seen by the screen shots below:

What clues does the music give us as to what type of film the trailer is advertising?

• The non-diagetic sounds from the trailer suggests that the film advertising is a sci-fi. The deep bass sound and high pitch sound suggests that it has something to do with outer space and aliens.

What can you say about the voice of the person delivering the voice-over? Why do you think this voice was chosen? What effect does it have?

• This trailer does not contain any voice over. However, the effect that it gives is that it aids us in our understanding of the film and to add to our anticipation. It builds a sense of mystery and suspense about the film to through the accent and register alone.

How does the speed of what we see compare to watching a clip from a film? Why is this? Does the speed alter through the trailer or stay the same?

• The speed of the shots in a trailer tend to be more quicker than those in a film.
• This is because trailers usually consist of selected shots(usually the exciting ones) and to attract an audience.

What information are we given in the very last frame of the trailer?

• In the last frame we are given the date, websites, universal studios logo, relatively logo and rogue.

Which is more effective in making you want to see the film, the poster or the trailer?

• Trailers usually make me want to watch the film more as they can create an atmosphere which keeps me anticipated for the film. Some people also find that trailers are more effective as you can see action from the film itself which catches attention rather than a poster.

Research

Some people would say that image would be more important than font since having an image would create the atmosphere and would be more eye-catching. It also makes films look more interesting to making their audiences want to watch. For example:

From this poster, people would be more drawn to the image because of its unusualness rather than the font, where it seems to be less exciting unless accompanied with an image. You could also say that people are usually drawn into things visually and since images take up most of the portion of the poster it would be hard not to miss it. Images are necessary to posters as they link in with the actual story line or narrative, without it, it wouldn't make sense. Finally, images are very informative of the genre. For example, from the image below, the genre of the film would be historical.

However, you could also argue that fonts are more important than image because it helps create an atmosphere. The blurring effect on ‘one missed call’ gives a mysterious feeling, therefore drawing people to it.

Also, some people would argue that the main point for having fonts would be to anchor the meaning of the image. As shown below, we can suggest that the film has to something to do with spiders from the web coming out of his wrists and the design of his costume and also maybe something heroic, since he is high above the ground this suggests that he has a duty to protect the city. This is all anchored by the text in the poster 'spider-man'.

Overall, both the fonts and images are important as they rely on each other to capture people's attention and to raise their curiosity and anticipation. Both the font and image give out information whereas if it were to be presented separately it would not be eye-catching and interesting.

Copy of Film Titles on Prezi

The meeting video

The meeting

When we started our media lesson, we were told that we were going to make a short film as practice for our year 13 coursework. The film had to be no longer than 60 seconds, be shot inside the school grounds, cover different aspects of filming which were to have the ability to hold a steady shot using a tripod and to use different shots from what we learnt during AS Media. The main theme of the short film would be based around the title 'The Meeting'

Firstly, it was required of us to plan out what we were going to do, so we came up with a story line based around the theme ‘meeting’. A new girl arrives in school but she gets bullied by Hannah who in the end gets knocked out.

Secondly, from our story line we drew out a storyboard version of our short film, where we planned out the different types of shots we would be using and how we wanted it to be shown while making the film.

Once we had finished with the practical stuff, we uploaded the film onto a programme called iMovie. This software enabled us to edit the film and to use different editing techniques such as cuts or dissolve.

Since this was our very first try of making a film, we knew that we would not be able to break into the A/B grade boundaries. However, from the feedback that was given I learnt that when making my trailer it is important that we:

• Use a tripod to keep steady shots throughout the trailer,
• keep the camera on one person throughout the whole time and then on the other, to be able to create cuts when editing on iMovie
• keep shots no longer than 5 seconds to avoid the audience becoming bored and
• use dissolve techniques only when we want to show how time passed,

These points will be kept to mind while making the final trailer for my coursework.

Starting year 13 coursework

On the 29th June, we were lucky to have a media specialist come in and talk to us about how to improve our coursework for year 13. As a starter activity, we looked back on our AS course and had to talk about what we like and disliked about the course. By reflecting, this allows us to make future improvements in order to achieve a better grade. We made our own island and drew different symbols to describe the positive and negative aspects of our course last year. As you can see from the image, the most favorable moments in AS were working with technologies, editing, learning about music such as labels etc. However, the negative pontes had to be doing the research and planning and working with macs.