Horror Trailer: Final Cut

Media Evaluation - Part 4

Question 4: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Praise and criticism was highlighted in your focus group screening

One of the big praises we received was the jump scare at the end through collision cutting. In the feedback a lot of people spoke about it saying that, for instances “The end was really effective”. I agree with this as I feel it works well to make the trailer memorable for the audience. The final scare sticks in the mind of the viewer, because the scares stay inside the head of our audience after the trailer has finished. This would hopefully lead to a positive word of mouth about the trailer, a vital form of advertising that can lead to "viral marketing" that can elevate a low budget film (such as "Paranormal Activity") to mainstream success.

One of the big criticisms was the music. I can see why people spoke about it, saying things like the- “Soundtrack wasn’t horror enough”. I agree with this as the music doesn’t make you feel the emotion of horror. It is not suspenseful or match the action on screen. However, I do think the rocky feel of the soundtrack ties into action horrors like “Resident Evil 4” and “Doom” and is not against the conventions of this sub-genre of horror.

Another criticism we received was the trailer was “Very action oriented”. I can’t agree with this being a problem with the trailer because of the sub-genre of “Harvest on Crepsley Hill” was specifically an ‘Action horror’.  If we didn’t show all the conventions of the action genre, then people would be annoyed by our final product.  The Day of the Dead trailer is a good example. It annoyed people because the trailer was nothing like the actual film, and we knew how much, our target audience would be annoyed if we didn’t establish exactly what the film would be like. I was happy the trailer had enough action and horror aspects to achieve our aims. 

Another piece of widescale praise was the “Great gore effects”.  I do agree with this because we worked a lot of these effects during and after shooting to get these effects in. We all feel that they work well with the conventions of action horrors. The moment Richard spits blood onto the camera with the help of the ‘After Effects’ program is just a great moment in the trailer and, it was satisfying to hear the audience react to it so positively.

The last minute changes we made because of the focus group screening

One of the biggest complaints from the focus group was the volume of the music, and the dialogue of the actors. So after the group screening we adjusted the volume contro, and deleted almost all of the dialogue. The trailer didn’t feel professional until this problem was addressed.

We also added a few shots to the trailer, just to explain the narrative better. The best example of this is when I (Aaron) am running away from Ryan. It cuts from a shot of me running to me on the ground. So we went back and added a shot of me being knocked out. This helped to explain my character’s fearful emotions in more detail, while also allowing us to add another convention of the horror film with the use of collision cutting. There is now a slow shot of my reaction, before I am suddenly and shockingly killed by the machete.

The text also needed improvement. We changed the basic inter-titles look to make it look more professional. Other computer effects helped too. We added a filter to the footage, the simple change of lighting changes the whole feel of the trailer to a night-time diegesis.  Again this change allowed us to add another convention of low key lighting, giving an atmosphere of mystery within our trailer.    

Are you happy with your final product?

Now I have finished the trailer I can say I look back on it with great pride. I feel that it went really well in creating a product that wouldn’t look out of depth on a cinema screen. I feel that the group worked to each other’s strengths; With myself and Richard primarily on acting and filming, and Ryan and Frazer on editing and After Effects. It was a great team effort.  

Obviously there are certain things that I think went really well in getting across the horror conventions to their fullest potential. For example the music that Ryan developed worked really well within in the trailer. It twists on conventions to have almost contrapuntal music, but getting across the sub-genre of action horror. The music is metal, which is rare in horror films, but it also shows the action on screen of people getting killed to music you listen to. We felt that the traditional suspenseful music would feel out of place in our modern feeling trailer.

The moments of collision cutting, from slow to fast montage, work well in the trailer and delivered a jump scare. While juxtaposing the two halves of the trailer makes them far more extreme. The slow build up to the frantic finale works well in defining the true essence of “Harvest on Crepsley Hill”

Some of shots within the trailer work really well in delivering the body horror. The close up of Richard delivers body horror and works well in showing the emotion of the character in the scene and builds emotional connection, something that all good horrors need to do. 

                                                                                 
Looking back at the target audience we set out before we started I feel that we would appeal to them. We also had ideas of having a female heroine in our film (who is the only one who survives unscathed in the trailer). This shows how we stick to the forward thinking style of the modern horror genre. We feel that this film fits our target audiences perfectly, and would have matched the success of films such as “Resident Evil 4” and “Dawn of the Dead” (2004).

Media Evaluation - Part 3

Question 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Using media technologies in my research and planning stages

Media technologies helped a lot in my research and planning as they allowed me to access the areas I needed to gain further knowledge. Also it allowed me to experience things first hand, rather than be told in class.

YouTube helped me to gain a basic knowledge of trailers as it allowed me to watch many, all my different time eras. -This helped me discover what works in a trailer, and what I should stay away from. The downside is YouTube can provide as a distraction when working. You can end up going off on a tangent and losing variable lesson time with too much viewing time. After looking at so many trailers I found 3 that help me planning the most.   

After looking at so many trailers I found 3 that help me planning the most.

The first of these key pieces of research was “Day of the Dead”, and this helped me for all the wrong reasons. It showed me how not to make a horror trailer. The trailer comes across as a cheesy comedy and nothing to take seriously. However, after viewing the film I can say it’s nothing like that, with it being a heavy body horror. This is one scene in the film where we see a man get ripped in half, and is eaten by the zombies. Something that audience wouldn’t have expected from the trailer. This showed me how I needed to make all the conventions of my action horror to come through in the trailer, I needed to make people got the right atmosphere from my trailer. Or people would come see the film and be annoyed because it’s nothing like the trailer.

“Land of the Dead” was the genre as my trailer, with it being an ‘action horror’. This provided a good template for my trailer and gave me an idea of how to get across the themes in my trailer. It worked in building a small narrative but showing of a lot of the action. There is no doubt what type of film this is going to be, it has a clear target audience and it knows who it wanted to attract. This direct style was something I wanted to get into my trailer.

 

Finally the re-make trailer for “Evil Dead” showed off how to make a trailer which just works for everybody. Watching this is class everybody was in awe of it. This was the trailer that everybody wanted to make. The perfect balance, between ‘action’ and the narrative, and the increasing pace made for an unsettling by impressive viewing. This was the trailer that I wanted to really shape around and have something similar to with my finished product.

Outside of YouTube, Blogger was also extreme useful, as it allowed for quick sorting of all my work. I didn’t need to worry about loads of paper and different folders for trying to find my work; it was all there in one place. It also allowed me to access my work from any computer, maximizing chances for completing work outside the class-room. However if you don’t have access to the internet you cannot get to Blogger, and your work. If you lose connection you can’t complete work with pressures from many different A-levels builds up.

DVDs were also extremely useful during the research and planning stages. It allowed me to grow more of an understanding on the horror conventions, and also discover what I prefer as a type of horror: action horror, body horror or psychological horror. The many different DVD’s allowed me to see content that isn’t online, due to copyright. However the only problem is that you have to buy these DVD’s and there isn’t every chance the content you want will be on there. The effort and money was worth it with the Eli Roth interview on the Cabin Fever DVD, which allowed us to see how the modern director plans to scare a modern audience.  

Using media technologies in my construction phrase

Photoshop was a major tool in the construction phrase of my coursework. It allowed me to create the ancillary texts from scratch, and my improving understanding it helped me bring them to professional standards.

The simple addition of a lighting effect (using the Filter/Render menu) allowed the killer to stand out from the rest of the poster. The direct lighting on the centre of the image gives the poster much more of a professional look, and makes the text around the edges stand out more.

Layers were also very important on Adobe Photoshop. The ability to place layers on top of each other using the simple layers menu on the bottom right of the screen meant I could add smaller logos and text, helping creating a realistic looking poster and magazine cover.. Bevel and emboss features for texts (using the FX menu underneath the layers) allowed for texts to stand out from the picture. Headlines and quotes can be brought out to be more of a focus with the simple tick of a box. These simple features help you pick up Photoshop with ease, and to give the feature a much more realistic edge.

DaFont was also a useful in creation because the college computer did not have a wide of fonts. Instead, we this huge database in which I could find a style of text that would fit the bill perfectly. We used "Bebas Neue" in our trailer to give it a broad standing font that wasn't as cliche as Impact, and to make sure letters stood out and could be read clearly. On the poster I used the "Evil Dead" font, for a much creepier atmosphere on the poster, without the text the poster wouldn’t stand out in the way it does now.  Finally, for my magazine I used "Arial Black". This text was bold and defining, every letter stood out and made the magazine headline clear to read and to understand. Without this text I wouldn’t have had the bold headlines which help all the detail of my magazine stand out. 

Adobe Premiere Pro was a new programme which I had never used before this year but it helped hugely with the creation of our horror trailer. This allowed us to have a professional feel about our trailer. It allowed us to add filters to our work (contrast and brightness was particularly useful to make the trailer seem more at night) and it helped “Harvest on Crepsley Hill” look less like it was shot on a HD camera. By simply increasing the contrast it looked more like a film than a video, Adding music and sound effects of SoundBible with ease also helped. Our intertitles were also to the industry standards. These shots didn’t look like a PowerPoint slides, but more of a blockbuster feel. Using thr “emerge text” tool on Adobe After Effects to add an effect of Richard spitting blood on the camera, using the blood on one layer in front of Richard, just like working on Photoshop.

Lastly, the still and HD camera allowed us to capture with ease. They were so easy to get use to that we were all using them to the best of their ability, they were always close by so nothing ever went amiss.

Using media technologies in my evaluation stage.  

A Focus group for the rough cut of our trailers was recorded on an HD camera and let us see the true reaction of the audience to our trailer. This recording allowed us to see what moments of the trailer worked and the audience enjoyed. But also allowed us to see what they didn’t like-, and we could re-watch this focus group on YouTube to help remind us where we needed to improve.

Issuu allowed me to present this evaluation in a much more professional manner. Through this program I feel that the overall look of my final piece of work on this subjects look up to professional standard. This format allows for ease of navigation. You can easily find questions and response to areas on the course, and I chose to enhance this with embedded YouTube videos of my own work and various trailers that inspired me.

Finally, sharing the rough and final cuts of "Harvest on Crepsley Hill" on Facebook allowed me to broaden out to see opinions on the trailer outside of my media group. This simple sharing process helped me a lot to see how more of my target audience felt about my trailer. This twinned with a survey showed me a physical response from my target audience on my trailer. These methods helped me a lot in the overall improvement from the rough cut to the final screening, which can also be seen on YouTube as it was filmed on an HD camera.

Media Evaluation - Part 2

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

Creating my poster

For the creation of my horror poster I had to make sure that it followed the conventions of a typical horror poster. Basic research went into it and I found some key aspects that I need to include. I first took inspiration from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” trailer which I based my own poster around. I selected this poster because it was a villain dominated poster and I feel that there are not many of them in the industry. Also I feel that the USP (unique selling point) for my trailer is the killer. So I wanted them "front and centre" in my marketing. Also I took ideas from the “Blair Witch Project” poster.  I liked the  way the poster gave the film clear location, something that I wanted to create with my poster. That is why the killer is surrounded by the environment around them so you know exactly where the film will take place.  

Colour was the first important feature, as certain colours give connotations of wider themes. The main colour of my poster is red. Red connotes danger, warning people of the terror that the movie has. The same way as any signifier works, it set up early indication to hazards ahead, and that’s the kind of vibe I wanted to give off with my poster. Red is also the colour of blood, this warns of the “body horror” that people will see in the film. This was important to get across, because my film is an action horror, merging both gore and excitement.

Expressionist angles were another important factor I had to include in my poster. I wanted to show the killer from the film, and put him in a position of power staring down over the audience. This shows the audience that this character will be strong and almost indestructible, the typical convention of a psycho serial killer which can be seen in the shot of Rutger Hauer in “The Hitcher” after he is thrown from the car.

The lighting on the poster shows off the killer with back lighting. This creates a silhouette that hides the majority of him, so there is still that shock moment when he is first revealed on screen. His dramatic pose reflects the genre of ‘action’ horror, having all the big moments shot.  

 There isn't much iconography on my poster, but the main one if on the left hand side where we see the killer holding a machete. This indicates the ‘body horror’ that we will include in our film, it acts as a phallic symbol. This symbolizes the killer’s power over the rest of the cast and how he overshadows them all. Also the scarecrow mask hides his face and emotion, adding to the emotion of the film. We can never see his true reactions to events (Much Like Jason Voorhees, from Friday The 13th). Having this juxtapose with the victims whose emotions are always seen really make the two states more extreme than they actual are. 

My poster was based around one from the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s very similar in the respect that the killer dominates the poster. I choose this because it breaks conventions of showing off the killer before the film. Many posters tease at the themes and horrors they include, but I prefer being more obvious. I wanted the audience to see as much of the narrative as possible unfolding right in front of their eyes, which links into the detail of the horror trailer.

Creating my magazine cover

Making my magazine was a different matter. Rather than make an all out statement with it, I decided to do a more subtle feature on the director of the film. I felt this would attract a different kind of audience from the poster and widen the appeal of “Harvest on Crepsley Hill.”

A pull quote (a small section of the interview which would attract people in to buying the magazine to discover what the quote is all about) was important as nearly every magazine has one. This acts as a way to attract people in to the magazine when they see it on the shelf’s in the shop. It gives the audience an idea of what the main article will be about.

The lighting was something I needed to get right, because while it not is an outright horror image I still need to give of connotation that it is. That’s why after I finished work on the cover I added a smoke texture and also a contrast/brightness filter. This filter allowed this cover to give off that low key effect which horror movies have. Plus it juxtaposes well with the blue colour scheme of the rest of the titles, making things easier to see and read.

The mise-en-scene of the picture gives connotations of a director that is a hard worker. The basic picture against a plain brick wall gives the impression that this director is always hard at work at set and is an almost working class grafter. Also his ordinary clothes give this sense of a director who main aim is to get to set and start work on his project. A major chunk of horror’s audience is working class, so I felt this would help the cover appeal to them. 

I decided to go for “Total Film” magazine because I want to try and hit both sides of the target audience we had planned for. While it is your classic mainstream horror film, with the typical conventions, I feel that focusing on the “auteur” director it would pull in some new people to horror movies. Horrors are sometimes attacked for being cheap pieces of cinema just out to make a quick buck. However with this I wanted to show that there was new hope for the genre, with a respectable “auteur” effort behind its creation

 
My cover was very similar to the “Total Film” cover I saw which focuses on “Sherlock Holmes” in which there is one main image and a pull quote. This format was interesting because of it simplistic nature. A lot of magazines try too hard to catch your eye they end up being a mess. This format allowed me to show my film as the main focus of the issue, and the primary film people should be thinking about.

How does your poster and magazine cover tie into the style and look of your trailer?

My trailer is aimed for an audience from 16-40, with the main demographic of males. With this type of audience I approached my ancillary products in a way that would please them all. For my poster I used a lot of red and the villain for the connotation of violence and action in my trailer. I wanted to show them I wasn't hiding about the true 15 certificate nature of “Harvest on Crepsley Hill”. I wanted everybody to know that there would be a high body count, and the next iconic slasher movie. This poster acted as a statement to the competition, as much as a tease for the film and my target audience. This horror wasn't going to hold back.

The magazine however appealed to the more educated side of my target audience. Horror fans are often dedicated to certain auteurs, such as; George A. Romero, Alfred Hitchcock and John Carpenter, they can care as much as what happens behind the lens than they do in front of it. So what better way than have an exclusive with the director, giving them an inside into the film and the ideas behind it? This is why I went for “Total Film”, as I feel that it is the one magazine that allows me to hit both mainstream and niche audiences. “Empire” would be too mainstream, and “Sight and Sound” would be too arty, but “Total Film” hits just the right note.

Media Evaluation - Part 1

Question 1: In what ways does your media product (trailer) use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life products?

Horror Conventions

Genres have different conventions which set them apart from one another. This was the idea felt by Thomas Schatz who expressed in his book Hollywood Genres (1981) that the best way to analyse films was through the genre. Each and every genre has “genre fans” which help give the director some ideas of how to sell the film to them. When you go see a certain type of film you expect to see certain things.  Genres can change within limits so it keeps enough variety to maintain interest and have new ideas that could appeal to the fans of the genre. But enough repetition is essential to make sure the audience enjoy the film because of the genre.  

When making my own horror trailer I had to understand the conventions of the horror genre, so I could deliver something that would be expected from a horror film. While also making sure I had my own ideas so the film would stand alone.

For example, we include the stereotypical ‘creepy’, isolated location in our film. We set Harvest on Crepsley Hill in an abounded farmer’s field. We felt this location would offer something expected from horror, as it stands alone with nothing much around it, giving that real sense of isolation. Yet it also gave some innovation, not many films are set in a large open space. But we thought it would be interesting to allow the characters space to run, yet giving them nowhere really to run too. This is very similar to the 2011 film Husk, in which “A group of friends stranded near a desolate cornfield find shelter in an old farmhouse”.

Collision cutting was another convention we put in Harvest on Crepsley Hill. This is when you put two juxtaposition elements together to make them seem more extreme. In our trailer we go from fast-quiet-loud. These three states next to one another make them seem far more over the top than they actual are. This helps to deliver the ‘jump scare’ in our trailer, when we have an extreme close up and a scream. This is similar to Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailer in which it goes quite for a few seconds, and then a chainsaw slams through a door.

Our “Psycho serial killer” is very much based around Mike Myers, the killer from Halloween. We were fascinated by the way he stalked his victims. Also, the way he casual strolls around as he kills people was something we took from him. In our trailer, Ryan is chasing me and while I’m frantically running away, he walks around with such ease. We wanted to create the archetype of the slow moving monster/serial killer, which tells the audience, what he is doing doesn’t affect him.

P.O.V shots were another typical horror convention we put in our trailer to establish emotional attachment between the audience and the characters on screen. When the Scarecrow (Ryan) is standing over Richard we see it through the eyes of him (Richard) to show how they should feel weak and intimidated by the Scarecrow. This is very similar to Psycho, in the famous shower scene we see the killer through the eyes of Marion. This is used to make us feel like we are about to go through the experience first-hand.
 

We explored the theme of being trapped and lonely with our trailer The teenagers are, of course, isolated but so is the killer Ryan before he turns into the Scarecrow His isolation has driven him insane. This is very similar to Pamela Voorhees, the killer from the original Friday the 13^th. She is seeking revenge for the death of her child Jason. We felt it would a good idea to represent a killer that actual has some form of a motive, rather than a mindless killing machine.

         

Trailer Conventions

The same as the genre, trailers have certain conventions that you must stick by when making them. For instance, you cannot make a film trailer which looks like one genre of film, but then turn out to be nothing like that. For example 2009’s Drag Me To Hell looked to be the next big horror film, the trailer was terrifying. The final product wasn’t so horrifying and was often more of a comedy film and this got people angry. You have to deliver on what you advertise.

Most trailers have the same format of a slow build up to a fast finish; and the same can be said about our trailer. Making the trailer one giant collision cut makes both elements of the trailer more extreme. The slow build up allows us to build some narrative, while the final 30 seconds are pure action which excites the viewer while cross cutting to the inter-titles and the film’s title. This is known as a highlight trailer. Where, rather than showing you one section of the film (scene trailer) we tease the story, and some of the ‘wow’ moments of the film, without spoiling the narrative.  This is very similar to the trailer for George A. Romero Land of the Dead. This trailer starts slow, building the story. It then kicks in to show some moments of excitement and tells the viewer what they can expect from the film.

The use of inter-titles within trailers help to explain the story, and this is no different to ours. The use of inter-titles allows us to not use painful obvious dialogue and scenes to explain the story, and if anything helps to established the narrative better. Inter-titles in our trailer help to establish the “transformation” that Ryan goes through to become the murderous scarecrow. An excellent example of well used inter-titles is the Evil Dead (2013) trailer, in which inter-titles explains to people new to the series the basic premise of the story.

This is an “appropriate audience” action horror trailer; it hasn’t got great moments of ‘body horror’ it still shows a lot of horror moments, and deals with subjects that wouldn’t be comfortable with a younger audience. The trailer is 15 rated for an 18 certificate film. It’s very similar to the Dawn of the Dead (2003) trailer which was classified as a 15, while the film was a strong 18 rating. With the easing on censorship, we have be able to make this film to appeal to a teenage audience while also pulling in the older demographic. Of horror fans

The Influence of Auteurs

When trying to bring my own soul to the film I brought what scared me the most in horror films: collision cuttings and jump scares. I feel that these are the most effective way to scare the audience as their in nothing you can do about it, the ability to draw out a scare so the audience are also begging for it just to happen. That is why we created the post title screen shot where the Scarecrow comes towards the camera in extreme close up and screams.

Zack Snyder was the biggest auteur influence on our trailer. He was the director for Dawn of the Dead and Watchmen. Both these films are examples of how Snyder uses a mix of slow and quick montage with violence in his films, something that we tried to re-create in our trailer. Also, both these film were huge successes at the Box office pulling in a lot of profit. We feel that Harvest on Crepsley Hill could emulate that success. 

Action horrors are currently doing very well with the audience, as proved by the success of the latest Resident Evil film. The problem is audiences aren’t looking to be intellectually challenged when they go see a film, they want to be entertained and excited. From this we knew we needed a solid but basic story, but also to have a lot of action so they don’t become bored with the film. This is why in the trailer we have 3 death scenes, to show the audience we are as much about actions as story.   

Magazine analysis

Finished magazine, a photo by Aaronm32 on Flickr.

Harvest on Crepsley Hill poster analysis

Harvest on Crepsley Hill poster, a photo by Aaronm32 on Flickr.

Real-life "Total Film" Flickr analysis

sherlock, a photo by Aaronm32 on Flickr.

Real-life "A Nightmare on Elm Street" Poster Analysis

a-nightmare-on-elm-street-2010-poster-horror-movies-10775492-500-8141, a photo by Aaronm32 on Flickr.