Final Film Poster

Here I have posted our final film poster.

• We decided to use one of the photos that I had taken of Alana previously and then manipulated the image into black and white effect shown. I think this gives a great effect as seen above where a passer by would be induced to have a double look at the poster as they are not sure what the image is as the face seems to fade into the background. I feel this gives the impression of the character being illusive and eerie because you cannot see all the face but can recognize the mask.
• We decided to use the same font for the magazine cover and Film poster this I feel gives a sense of continuity throughout both of the texts. We used a sort of scratchy text that gives the impression of a horror genre.
• We have used a black, red and white colour scheme again the conventional horror colours. These colours give the impression of blood, darkness and also innocence seen through the white. These colours also help the the text stand out from the image behind it, highlighting the information that the poster is giving them.
• On the poster we have only given the vital information such as the: website for the film, the release date, the title of the film, the catch phrase 'don't cross the line' and also some remarks made by people who have viewed the film, really suggesting the genre and how scary the film really is.
• We have also centered the text around the image so the whole image seems to flow from one to the next.

I am really pleased with the poster I feel it is very different from others so it will stand out but has all the necessary elements to make it a scary horror film poster.

Final Magazine Front Cover

Here I have posted our final Film Magazine front cover.

• I really like our magazine front cover again we used a similar image to our teaser trailer poster but it is different, there is a different angle and we also used a different effect that made the image recognizable and grasp the audience and give them the same effect. This effect was totally black and white image which allowed you to see more of the facial features than the poster which I think works well as little by little we reveal more of the character.
• We also used the same colour scheme with the red, black and white giving the same connotations which we felt would be appropriate for a horror magazine. We thought that these colours really work against the picture creating a vivid and 'stand-out' piece.
• We used a circle within the front cover which I feel really adds to the reality of the piece. This also highlights pieces of the texts which interesting pieces of information such as the 'scre4m' articles that is up and coming today.
• We used some blood splats which again I feel adds to the character and atmosphere of the front cover. This also really gives the connotations of the horror and gore genre.
• We also some features of magazine covers such as: a bar code, date of release and price of the magazine.

I really like our magazine cover and feel that it sets the tone for our film and really works. If we were to improve it I would just add some more features such as more banners with text in them.

Our Final Teaser Trailer

Here I have posted our final teaser trailer.

Institution- Legendary Pictures

In our group we have ecided that we would use 'Legendary Pictures' to be our film production company. We chose this company for the reasons such as them having a larger budgets than say working titles making our film seem more up budget, with all of the effects that have gone into the teaser trailer. Also the actual image seen below of the logo emergign from the smoke fits in well with the horror genre.

I have even put the video below to show how it would fit in with our teaser trailer as we fade the scenes from black to the clip of the title and back in black and then onto the next scene. The music also works really well with the teaser trailer creating the eerie sounds that we wanted for our teaset trailer.

Certificate Rating

Here I researched the 'British Board of Film Classification' on it I found a very useful table in how films are given their Certificate rating I have shown it below. I found this very useful in looking at where abouts our own teaser trailer and by extension film would fit in.

I would place our film trailer within the 15 years region purely because there are some scenes of extreme violence and also other films that I have researches such as 'The uninvited' and 'The Strangers' have been certified as a 15. We have tried to base our own horror 'level' around these films and so I feel labeling ours a 15 would be appropriate.

Magazine Cover idea

Here I have posted an idea of what we want our text to be like however we wish to change the the image behind as you cannot really see the text and therefore does not stand out as much we would have liked.

Font Types for our Poster and Magazine Cover

Here I have made some prototypes of what we could possibly use for our font for our film poster

of magazine cover.

below I have chosen a deep red that symbolizes blood, hate, revenge, anger and many other negative emotions associated with the horror theme. It is also a blood colour and so will attract in the attention of the audience. I have chosen a bold font that will stand out against a background and is very easy to read. I have placed the review bit inside the 'H' which has been made larger that the rest of the font, in order to hold to the word review and still be easy to read. I do like this font and the way it is fitted together.

I really like this second idea that I have come up with. It is in a more stylistic font which I think helps build continuity and recognizability such as the 'Empire' title. The bolder and lighter red colour again has the same connotations of blood perfect for the title but the colour makes it stand out even more to the audience. I have placed the review part at the end of the word and so it makes sense when you read it. I have rotated it to make the title seem a whole rather than two words and I feel this makes it look very professional. The bold outline really accentuates the boldness of the title. This would also be good for our poster cover as well.

This third idea is a much simpler design that I have created I have used a simpler font that is separated lettering making it look more sparse. I have layered the review in front of the word horror again they touch and so look like they belong together.

Overall I feel this has been a useful activity and will refer to it later when creating our poster and magazine cover. My favorite is the second design as I feel it is most suitable for the title of a magazine bout could also be used a title font for our poster. I will suggest this to my group and we can decide what font we wish to use closer to the time.

Magazine Titles

We have decided to use neither Empire or Total Film and decided that our best option was to create our own magazine giving us the freedom to be totally creative with our choice of what to put on our film cover, in order to advertise our film. along with other up and coming horror films such as 'scream 4'.

We have decided to call our magazine 'Horror Review'. I feel this gives the idea of the content of what the magazine content will be about, it has a sophisticated sound to it, yet still has appeal to a younger audience that is the same type of young adult/teenage audience that would go and see horror films.

Total Film Magazine

Here I have looked at the 'total film' magazine covers and have found them much simpler in design but still very effective in catching the audience's eye.

Above is the star treck cover this simple shot of the leading actor looking straight down at the camera really gives the impression of almost intimidation or challanging the audience, prehaps sending across messages about the characters personality. The black and white style makes the charater look graphic and stern and really excentuates the whites of the eyes. The text is dotted around the picture with the colour scheme of red, white and black. I really like this design and feel that it is an effect that we could accomplish and still make it look effective.

I choose to look at this front cover because it uses a female in a sisnster way. Megan fox dressed in a sexy cheerleading outfit intrigues in the audience with other texts parts attracting them in such as the large arrow pointing to her head. As the audience pay more attention to the picture they notice the blood around her hand and also on the floor in a footprint style. This simple image with underlying tones really captures both parts of the audience's intrests (Horror and attractivness).

This montage look again gives the impression of disjointed images being joined together as one which is the jist of the narrative of the film 'The Social Network'. This almost postmodern image suggests the audience type of young people who have grown up in the age of facebook.

Empire Magazine Cover Analysis

To understand the basic way inwhich magazines attract auidences I went onto the slide share website and typed in 'Empire Magazine Cover' this then came up with a wide range of various powerpoint presentations.

I chose this one below because although it is short it gives a very detailed explanation as to what each item on the cover displays to the audience and how it wall works together as a package to look like a whole cover. I like that the this picture is of the joker from the Batman on of the films series 'The Dark Knight'. Using s dark villain seems to really sell the genre and the USP of the film. This is something that we have already thought about doing for our own magazine cover by using Alana's face with the mask on to give the same effect as the Joker.

Empire Magazine Cover Analysis

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Empire Magazine

Here I have looked at the empire film magazine. This magazine looks at the big block buster films that are released, below I have looked at some of the eye catching covers that I think are really effect front covers for catching the audience's eye.

Above I have looked at the in production and well anticipated film 'The Hobbit'. The success of the trilogy films 'The lord of the rings', the basis for the revolutionary cgi character 'Gollum', becoming an icon for the trilogy and now has carried on the hype towards the film ' The Hobbit'. The Central position of Gollum on the cover with the all important ring as part of the wording, engages the audience's familiarity with the films and make the link between the old and the new. The iconic 'Empire' text shows the mag. that the film is being advertised in. Everything else being pushed to the back means that the image is what takes audience's attention.

Again the large and iconic images are used to show the audience's familiarity with the films such as the first 'Hellboy'. The Empire label is again in flames which keeps with the continuity of hellboy with the fiery connotations. The colour scheme also strictly only uses two main colours being black and red, again increasing the theme of hell. What is ironic is that he has wrapped around his wrist a rosary contrasting the title 'Hellboy' and creating hype around it.

The reason I choose this cover to look at was the way the title are all over the place in this sort of messy and kaiotic which is mainly what the film 'Kick-Ass' is about. I really love the blood splat behind around the Empire logo which I thing we should take into consideration. Again the main actor and icon for the film is shown and we therefore associated the film and want to know more.

Above I wanted to get the general gist of what Empire magazine advertised. To do this I typed into google images and this is what I came up with. I then print screened the page to give me a collage of front covers. The thing that my group has decided is that not enough horror films are advertised by Empire and therefore we need to look for a magazine that is horror orientated. This way our film would attract the audience we want by featuring in a magazine also aimed at the same audience.

Poster images

In our media lesson Alana and I decided that we would go and take a few pictures of her in the mask to see whether we could get an idea as to what we liked and could sue for either our magazine cover or film poster.

We took the photos in a variety of places most of which were either of Alana face on at the camera in a close up of her face in the mask which we though could look good as the front cover of the magazine, because it is so eye catching and would really intrigue the audience drawing them in. I think the mask also represents the genre because the mask is indeed scary, but it also gives some of the narrative of the film to the audience . The ones of Alana in a mid shot showing her body hunching down in crouching positions make her seem creepy and cunning, and the fact that she is peering through a window suggest the audience trying to make barriers between her and themselves, this again hints the genre and character that we are trying to portray.

Hopefully we will use these

Poster Ideas 2

We have had some more poster ideas whereby we use the same image as before, but we have duplicated the shot of Alana and manipulated it by flipping it so it looks like there are more of her than there are, this again does still look disturbing and would draw in the attention of the audience.

In the idea above we duplicated this again and rotated it so there looks like there are four of Alana and she is standing in different places. I find it effective that her head is tilted in different directions in each shot that this makes it look rather psychologically disturbing and is what audiences really want to see. The only thing about this rough draft and idea is that the floor needs to be matched according to the shadowing.

We may indeed develop this idea further.

Poster Ideas

Here Laura, Alana and I came up with some ideas as to what we could do for our film posters. We wanted to create a mood of unease and also curiosity to give the hype that we would want for our teaser trailer.

Here we have taken a screen grab from editing our footage. This shot is of Alana standing underneath the lamp post in a residential area. We have made the photo black and white to give it a more moody and clinical feel. I feel this darkens the mood of the poster and would make an audience feel uneasy. To attract the attention of the audience towards Alana as she is quite small within the shot, we had added beams of light in different colours to attract the gaze of the audience. I think that the beams create a good attraction, they can also give off and enhance moods, however I think that the colours that we used to not have the connotations of the horror genre that we want for our poster. If we choose the colour red then this may create a different effect.
This second design I really like. Again we have used the same image as before, however we have taken the original image and the black and white image and layered themselves upon each other so the audience get the idea of fragmented time and also perhaps fragmented identity in the character of Alana, this gives a very disorientating and postmodern feel to the poster. Again Alana is very small within the shot and we should perhaps look at enlarging the image of her so she stands out. But all in all I feel this is a creepy poster overall.

As these are just the first two ideas we still have a lot of freedom to create new ideas and expand on the ones that we already have.

The Blair Witch Project- Horror Poster

Below I have looked at the Blaire Witch Project poster. I really like the was the poster is composed. The factual information is presented in the middle really does make the poster seem as a factual information poster instead of a film advertisement which I think really draws in the audience. I also like the way that two main elements of the poster are faded into one image with the woods fading into what we assume is the main character a helpless crying young woman, I think this image is really terrifying because it is so realistic.

The Uninvited -Horror Poster

I have looked at 'The Uninvited' poster. I really like this poster, I find it so engaging with the audience. The harsh black and white really accentuate the silhouette. The position of the silhouette suggest the eerie nature of the character and the peering in really does appear frightening. The fact that the body language is encroaching on the audience in a threatening manner but we cannot see (what we assume is a her) face and therefore not her emotion which is scary tot he audience. I really like the woods in the background which again as I have looked at before give the impression of isolation from society.

Another thing that I really find in increasing the genre and hype about the film, is the font type. The scrawling handwritten text looks child like and a classic horror font, which I feel works really well with the image and therefore adds to the tension and overall feel of the film.

By putting the audience in the situation, you really get a sense for what the film is about and therefore this makes the audience want to go and see the rest of the film.

Researching Horror Film Posters

Below I have looked at some of the different types of posters used to advertise the one film for 'The Strangers'. Each one gives the connotations such as the genre of the film and the basic information needed to create the same hype needed for audiences to want to know more about this film.

Here this poster has used a simple but very effective image of the victim and the killer within one shot. The killer in the background is wearing a mask and is seen within each poster that they are featured in. The dark lighting gives the impression of fear and unease, and the unsuspecting victim not knowing where the killer is, becomes truly terrifying. The title is small compared to the image and subtle the eerie way in which the text is blurred purposely makes the audience concentrate more on what the title is and so remember it more.

Again this is a very simple shot of Liv Tyler the leading actress with in 'The Strangers'. This head and shoulder shot give a great representation of the character and the role that she plays with in the film. The panicked look on her face and the blood trickling down from her ear sends the connotations of horror and fear to the audience. Again dark lighting is used to make the poster look foreboding and dark. The same text is used in the same style giving the idea of continuity between each of the posters.

This image includes the entire cast and their roles. The changing heights suggest the status of the killers (in masks) and victims. The fade to black gives the impression of the situation being bleak for the outcome of the victims, and also suggests the dark nature of the film. Once again the same style and text are used with the leading actors. The one thing that caught my eye was the caption 'Because you were home' This is an extremely terrifying line that becomes the catch-phrase for the film and this is extremely personal to the audience as 1.) they are being talked to directly and 2.) this statement could easily apply to them, making the film that bit more real.

In conclusion I found these posters very relevant to attracting the audience and mood that we would want for our teaser trailer. Hopefully I can take some of the inspiration from these ideas and put them into my own groups product of our poster for our teaser trailer.

Saw -Horror Posters

Below I have looked at three of the saw posters.

• All three of the of posters feature some sort of tool that looks medical in some way such as the scissor (bottom) which can only be imagined to be used for torture.
• All three have a white theme running through them which adds to the clinical impression, however it does look dirty around the edges with the titles giving the impression of dried blood.
• There is continual font types used to create some form of continuity throughout the posters.
• The sequel number is made up of the tools that makes the simple image effective and interesting for an audience to look at.
• They do not have that much information given on them, which means that if people want to find out more then they must go on the internet.

Creating effects on scenes

Below we have made some screen grabs as to what we have manipulated in the each of the main shots. We are still quite a way from finishing our teaser trailer as we still have to add in music and inter-titles and smooth out the transition from one scene to the next.

This is the opening shot of Milly being dragged through the woods by Alana the killer. We used the effect of 'old film' to give the effect of the event has already happened in the past, meaning that the shots are not following chronological order. The movement is also already grainy and blurry when moving, giving the impression of disorientation and panic. We also reversed the shot so instead of Milly being dragged backwards, she seems to be pulling herself forward in a awkward motion towards the camera making it eerie and chilling for the audience.

In this scene we have tried to replicate a night vision effect. We did this by the balance of the shots, we increased the green whilst decreasing on the red and blue, giving a greenish ting as on a night vision camera. We also made the contrast greater within the shot making the outline and a darker image especially around the features of my face so you can see my facial expression and when I react to Alana entering as the killer. We also put on a spotlight effect that attracts the audience's attention to my face and the facial expressions that I pull. This is also used on the same scene in Milly's shot where Alana as the killer is pinpointed to the audience by this effect where she would not be seen by the audience otherwise.

These top two shots are of the garage scenes where Alana is moving from place to place and you do not see her move only appear in each of the shots. The filming was done at early evening and so the already dark scene was quite eerie. However we thought we could perhaps enhance this mood by putting the scenes into black and white which I feel really captures the light on the mask, drawing the audience's attention to it and meaning that this becomes a large part of the trailer. The black and white also suggest the bleak outlook of the victims that are involved. I think that the background of this urban garage area really makes the film feel up to date and the background seems to make it all the more relate-able to the audience.

I think we are doing well with what we have at the moment but we are constantly changing and manipulating each shot. We are now very confident with using Adobe and this has come to our advantage, making the shots look effective and create emotion when audience's view the trailer.

Using Adobe Photoshop

Today I used Adobe Photoshop. We decided in our group that this could be a great way to present our poster and magazine cover. I therefore decided to start experimenting with Photoshop so i could get to grips with the software and would not waste time when we came down to actually making our poster and magazine cover.

Below I discovered how to edit around the part of the image that I wanted to remain. I did this by using a editing 'wand' that I would drag around the image of the tree, Alana and myself. I could then press the cut button and the background would be cut out leaving a blank background. I then decided that I wanted to fill the background with a new colour. On the right was a colour scale that allowed me to choose the colour that I wanted. I then selected the foreground option located along the top tool bar, then by selecting the paint can icon I could fill in the background.

I then wanted to see if I could add text to what I had already created. By selecting the text icon on the left tool bar ( the large 'T' sign) I could pin point where I wanted the text to go. I then wrote what I wanted the text to say, realising it was to small, I located where the size of the text was situated along side the font type. Changing both of these made the text stand out and look bold against the image.

I then tried with a second Image I took one of the photos of Milly that we had used previously in my blog. I did the same as with the previous Image and cut around what I wanted to remain. I choose a different colour for this image and used a dark purple. Instead of putting text on this image I wanted to change the reality of it. I did this by adding in some images of grass blades that were already set on the software. I then put the grass where I wanted them, which was around Milly so she looked like she was hiding in the grass. I thought this looked very effective however I thought I had put to much grass around her and so wanted to take some out, but I could not seem to undo this tool.

Below are the finished posters that I had created. I am pleased with the amount of experience that I had gained from just playing around with Adobe Photoshop and hopefully if we use this software I will be able to give advice on how to do it. I think the one thing that need to improve on is the quality of which I edit the background and around the image that I want to remain. As seen below particularly on the first poster the tree was very hard to cut out and I perhaps need to spend more time practicing.

Editing

Today in media we found that we were able to upload all of footage in one go. We have began to start editing our footage on Adobe Premiere Elements. We have looked at the different effects that we can create on some of the scenes such as the one where Milly is being dragged through the mud. we have distorted the movement and so it seems jittery and have been able to manipulate it, so it plays in reverse meaning she is being dragged towards the camera rather than away from it. Other scenes such as the hand held one of Milly and my self filming each other, we have managed to create a look of night vision. We have also created a spot light Alana in the back ground of one of the shots where it was hard perhaps without any of the effects drawing the audiences attention to them.

During lunch I looked for some music for our non-diegetic piece of music for our trailer. I looked at the following website.

http://freeplaymusic.com/

Release dates

Below I have looked at some various teaser trailers for films within the horror genre. I watched these teaser trailers on youtube and then print screened the shot when the relase date was shown, I have pasted them below. This shot is of one of the saw teaser trailers and typically the release date is at halloween. Halloween being a celebrated season of scarying eachother is popular amoung teenagers who seek thrills at this time. I feel that the decsion to release a film at this time would increase the amount of people going to see this becuase of the season.

Again saw 3d has also opted for releasing their film in October the month of halloween and when being scared and the horror theme is most popular within the year. A larger hype will be created around the time of halloween, this means that a vast wider audience will be tempted to go and see this film increasing the audience going to see the film and therefore earning mroe money.

I looked at the release date for the film 'The Uninvited' again this was released in the winter months where it seems fitting for a dark film to be released in the darker months of the year which I think adds to the atmosphere when the audience go to watch a film. I also like the way they had advertised the website for the film under the release date, this gives the audience a chance to visit the website and find out more about the film.

This screen grab is from the teaser trailer for 'Scream 4' released in April, alothough this seems a little late for a horror film to be released, it has the advantage of being the fourth month in the year and so there appears to be a link between release date and title making it easy for the audience to remember when the film comes out.

Overall I think that our release date should also be around the winter months or even halloween if we wish to attract a large audience and create a lot of hype around the teaser trailer making people want to go and see the film.

Trouble with my Laptop

Recently while doing work my laptop has contracted a virus, which is not allowing me to go onto the internet making it hard to keep up my blog work at home. This means much of my work is split between home laptop and the school computers. It is currently being fixed and I should be able to get my blog up to date.