Final Film Trailer

Final Magazine Cover

Final Poster

Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Question 2:How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

"Hidden" - My main film poster

Film Focus Front Cover, featuring "Hidden"

I created a consistent campaign with a teaser trailer, film poster and film magazine front cover with the main sell-line applying to my film campaign.

I have established clear links between my campaign products. I have done so in various different ways, by consistently using the production company logo in my products so they are recognisable. I have not used them in my film magazine front cover as in real production it would be a separate institution creating the magazine, but the feature of my campaign on the cover would be mutually beneficial as the image is really bold and links in with the themed edition of Film Focus being a horror. This will also appeal to my audience which is 15-25 year olds predominantly, the colour scheme is a three colour palette of red, black and white, which again fits in with my poster and inter-titles of my trailer.

{INSERT SWATCHES HERE}

My logo of Hidden is consistent through-out, not only with the colour, but the font and this is a trademark of my campaign which is recognisable to my audience. I have used a slogan, which I have found in most horror films to work well if it is quick, catchy and in sync with the film title.

The Purge teaser poster

I also my film genre has slightly altered, I feel this still fits in with the concept of my film as it addresses the psychological element of my campaign, and questions who is there, a real person, or a figment of the protagonists imagination and mental unravelling.

I wanted to use the same image for both my poster and my magazine cover as this is consistent with the main professional campaign that inspired my own campaign which was The Purge. The same image was used on different variations of the posters, with a similar font and layout. After researching The Purge, and looking at poster variations online, it was unclear which posters were fan made but regardless, posters such as these gave me the idea to create another teaser poster, with a twist. I wanted to create something that was more than a typical film campaign, and given the extra time and resources, I would develop further. My concept is an out door viewing of my film, much like an American style parking outdoor pop up cinema, but with a twist. The staff working at the event would all be in character as the masks worn by the antagonist in my film campaign. My teaser poster was additional to my main poster therefore adding another level onto my campaign. The poster advertised not only the film campaign itself but enhanced the viewing experience for the audience, bringing the film to life to make it more realistic whilst viewing. If possible, I would again

Hidden Twitter Page

Another extra for the Purge marketing posters

I have made good use of the current use of social networking of a way to market and advertise my film campaign to my target audience, of whom are avid users of social network as I have established from previous primary and secondary audience research. A twitter page allows me to make my audience feel exclusive and to share sneak peaks and special competitions to create more hype and excitement around my campaign, so that this allows the campaign to grow, including using social networks to establish a firmer grip with the target audience.


Where would you find my campaign?

Telephone Box Advertisment

Trailer: 

Hidden Twitter Page

My trailer is designed to be slightly ambiguous and intriguing. It is aimed to fans of the horror genre, but very much trying to in force realism within it, as it could suggest so many things about the protagonist and antagonist, that it is very much a psychological trailer. This is why it is a hybrid of the two genres, which gives a wider appeal, to those who like horror and also psychological films, but combined, the two genres work well together. This is why I would show my trailer within the advertisements of both horror and psychological films. With the established interest of these splices of genre, it would appeal to them automatically.

Magazine Cover:
Due to this element of this campaign being mutually beneficial for both the magazine and my campaign, it would be in most news agents and off licenses.
Rather than creating a horror focused magazine, which would greatly appeal to my target audience, I wanted to create a generalised magazine which would have wider



Poster: 

My main poster is very adaptable, and could be adjusted in size to appear in all various types of typical0740...3
advertising locations such as bus stops, buses, billboard and phone boxes. I have created mock ups for these forms of advertisment

Tube Advertisment

Bus Advertisment

Genre

I have attempted to create a concrete portrayal of the horror genre within my campaign, such as dark colour palettes with red to connote danger and panic. I tried to keep the pyschological aspect of my campaign tied in with the trailer rather than the whole campaign as I thought this would be best represented through a trailer rather than a poster. By keeping my poster simple, it appeals to a wider audience. I have chosen the language in my campaign carefully to imply a paranoia within the narrative of my campaign, by using an interrogative for my slogan to suggest and re-inforce paranoia.

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways do your media products use develop or challenge conventions of real media products?

MY TRAILER ANALYSIS WILL BE UPLOADED ON MONDAY, AS I HAD TO LEAVE AS COLLEGE WAS CLOSING AND COULDN'T RENDER IT IN TIME. AL SAID THIS WAS FINE.

 


As my trailer changed throughout the time, therefore there wasn't a specific trailer I revolved my trailer around. I did however watch a variety of trailers, such as The Women in Black, The Purge, You're Next and Devoured. I did also decide to challenge forms and conventions in terms of the soundtrack.

Whilst incorporating distorted psychological non-diegetic soundtrack, I juxtaposed a piano soundtrack into the beginning of the trailer. From watching You're Next and The Purge, both trailers begin with equilibrium and then dramatically turn to sudden disequilibrium, which is communicated through the sound scape, mise-en-scene and cinematography. In You're Next, the contrapuntal and ironic soundtrack of perfect day is playing through the disequilibrium, which very much challenges the conventions of psychological horror, however it is that which makes it creepy and almost comedic in a sense, that for the protagonists, its clearly not a perfect day. I wanted to use  slightly contrapuntal non diegetic sound, but I did it in a more subtle way, having it in the background during the disequilibrum.

Within this scene of Devoured, although not identical, the same soft piano style is present.  The scenes, although are completely different, hold the same purpose. They ease the audience in, before disequibrium strikes. I decided that the scene should be something normal, from every day life, which would give the appearance of equilibrium, however I had ideas when it came to the kettle and its connotations.
To me, I used the kettle to symbolise the building climax of the protagonists anxiety, suggesting that soon she would boil over, hence the repetition of the shot in numerous parts of the trailer. I also did this with the ticking clock shot, as it would unnerve the audience, creating suspense.

I also mirrored another shot from devoured, which was the door slamming scene. In devoured, the door slam happens within the first minute, which is one of the horror signifiers. Within my trailer, the door slam is included in the montage towards the end of the trailer. As I had limitations with location and technologies, i found it harder to create suspense through mise-en-scene like in devoured, therefore the door slam is one of my more shocking shots.

The mask.

My main inspiration from professional texts was the costume of the antagonist. After seeing the poster for the purge at a bus stop, it was when i realised I wanted an antagonist who was anonymous. This way, the crimes or things they did were more terrifying as you can't put an identity to them. Although my genre changed,  I wanted to make sure my mask was original to other real texts, so went to an arts and crafts shop and got this which was completely different to anything I had seen in a professional campaign.

Unlike most of the trailers I watched, my trailer only featured two characters. This was due to re-filming my trailer after the rough cut, and a change in my concept. Although I challenged a convention,
Within this shot, we can see  a still fromThe Women In Black, where the protagonist is looking down from a window, and moments later the monstrous other appears behind his shoulder. Although this shot does not conform to the conventions of of a psychological horror, as a high angle shot would traditionally be used for a protagonist to suggest anxiety, I used it as the framing of the shot symbolises entrapment psychologically of the protagonist.

I decided to set the filming location in a home. It was easy to film in my own home and had complete freedom to use it in any way I liked. All of the trailers I analysed and deconstructed were either set, or had scenes without a house hold. This symbolises the invasion of the safe zone, and therefore creating an anxio-genic atmosphere. In this way, I conformed with the conventions which would be expected, and due to the genre hybrid, the invasion of the home was important, especially to tune into the psychological element.

Extra Poster

Final Products

Rough Cut Two

Psychological Horror

After some reflections from my rough cut, I have been unhappy with my trailer so far therefore wish to re-film it. Before doing so, my plans were to research again into trailers, however not just the genre was important, but the portrayal of psychological and mental unravelling through cinematography and mise-en-scene. I have been watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and American Beauty and also though these film trailers are not from the genre my campaign is, the shots are useful to show mental unravelling.





 

Poster Comparison w. Professional

rough cut magazine cover

Rough cut feedback

Rough Cut Comparison w. Professional Trailers

rough cut (no sound)

Final Poster

Hidden Outdoor Screening Campaign

Work on Camtasia

My work on Camtasia on Lucy Durham's Skills Development

Thoughts So Far

Hidden Meetup Concept (Extra Advertising)

Target Audience Feedback

Second Draft Poster

Print Work Images

Above are a selection of the images I can use for my print campaign, like my posters and film magazine cover. My inspiration came from The Purge, due to the similarity in genre and props I thought this would be helpful to use a similar style of image as their campaign as it has proves to be very successful. I chose to take my photographs in a studio, to make use of the specialist lighting to ensure a similar finish to The Purge. I have previously took test shots to give myself knowledge about the lighting so I could try to get it the same effect. Although my images have not yet been edited, I plan on giving them a worn speckled effect like this poster as it looks highly professional. 

Test shots for print work

 Above are a selection of test shots I used within the studio to test out the lighting and how it would look. I tried to adjust the lighting accordingly to how the photographs turned out. I wanted the photograph to partly shadow the face of my antagonist so I had a spotlight shining from the left hand side corner to give the desired effect. With these shots in the studio it helped me to know how to use the lighting to my advantage and give me knowledge for when I wanted to use the studio for my real print images.

Audience Feedback

draft poster

This is my first rough draft of my poster. I have used dafont.com for my fonts for it to be edgy and stand out. I chose to have a three colour palette of red, white and and black as this is classically a colour palette used within the horror genre. My image is placed to the right of the poster which follows the same convention as The Purge poster which is very similar to the film I am wishing to c

Font for Print Ideas

I have been looking in the horror section on dafont.com looking for interesting fonts for my poster and magazine cover. From my flat plans I know I want it to be bold and stand out and the variety I have above highlight this however looking at professional magazines and posters, not all are so overly dramatic, the subtle fonts stand out the most therefore I want to incorporate bold yet subtle. 

The two fonts below stood out to me and from asking my peers, they agreed that both of these texts are something they would expect to see on a horror magazine or poster. I think that the second text would be something I used for subtitles as it is clearer and I have seen work previously with a similar text which was a horror poster and it looked highly effective.

Initial Logo Design Flat Plan

Possible Shot types

1) male protagonist looks in mirror at himself, breathing heavily, focusing straight ahead. 

2) make 

Being chased: final scene- close up of the couple holding hands whilst running, showing the engagement ring. 

 

Tracking shot of the couple being chased- long shot

 

Long shot, couple tripping and falling on the ground 

Point of view shot from couple- medium shot. Antagonist walks into view of the shot slowly and raises his index finger to his "lips" which are masked.

Female medium shot, in bathroom, looking in the mirror, shaking. She looks down at the hand.

Close up shot of the engagement ring on her finger as she touches and spins it about her finger.

Long shot (from stairs) the female hears the door bell ring

 

(Close up reaction shot?)

Long shot (from stairs) female walking towards the door to look who it is. Female walks slowly and hesitantly.

"Through the peephole" shot- a doorbell rings and from a high angle shot is the antagonist waving at the peephole.

 

Shot of the female protagonist on the other side of the door, holding her head, panicking

Shot of the female protagonist sliding down the door to sit down, head in hands, crying. 

 

Medium shot of the antagonist gloved hand suddenly shooting through the letter box in attempt to grab the female protagonist. 

Close up reaction shot of the female protagonists horrified face as she moved from the door.

Long shot of the female crawling through the living room

Point of view long shot - antagonist. Looking through a window at the female crawling through theliving room and knocking on the window three times

Shot from protagonist, low angle shot looking at window with antagonist knocking on the window.

Medium shot of the female protagonist- panicking, screaming but continuing to crawl away. 

Sofa at house- looking into garden, frightened couple huddle close together, close up shot. They see nothing however a knock at the window reveals the antagonist has not given up just yet. Fast pan to the antagonist as soon as the kicking on the glass door happens.

Extreme close up to the male protagonist as he sees the keys on the side, signifying an un-locked door.

Close up/ medium shot as the antagonist  reachs for the door handle, slowly pushing it down

Long shot of the male protagonist rushing for the door to try and stop the antagonist from entering their home

Further Prop Ideas

Further Prop Ideas:

As I am filming in a woods where my characters are supposedly having a picnic, I will have to find fitting props. This would include a picnic blanket which I already own, some food for the picnic which I will buy from a local supermarket and things such as cups which again, I will obtain from my own house to save costs.






 

To add to my plot, I have decided that my young couple will get engaged at the beginning of the sequence, and this will make them more likable to my target audience and it's more likely they will feel a sense if allegiance when those characters are place under threat. I will show the engagement in the beginning of the trailer, in the secluded romantic woodland, as this justifies their reason for being there. I will need an engagement style ring, which I could buy from a high street shop and keep my spending to a minimal.