The images above show our location decisions that we made as a result of considering accessibility but also safety of unknown areas. We had many ideas of using old abandoned houses and areas in our location known for being quite eerie... however, after thinking about this and the availability of actually getting to use these locations; we made the final decision of just using a relatives house that we would clearly know of and know the location well enough to film there. Also there would be no potential barriers that we would come across when having to film unlike when filming at AS level.. we used a public location which meant we struggled a lot more with having to find a time when there were no passers by - however, we will not have that problem when filming in the house. The house in particular is not actually typical of a 'horror' house and if anything is the complete opposite. However, after doing research into specific things, such as lighting - we made the decision that we can play with the different lighting's and camera effects (to create potential shadows) in order to create the eerie, sinister atmosphere that audiences would typically expect.
At the end of our trailer, we have to conclude with our own title credits which include things such as the editor, director, author, musing, casting, etc. Above is a short clip of our title credits that we aim to incorporate in the final part of our trailer. Title credits are important as they are essentially the punctuation mark to the film. The credits also give attention to everyone who worked on the film; when watching films, audiences often stay to watch the credits and the end of the film... this can often just be to find out who the actors but also just a general way of allowing the audience to fully take in the impact and message of the film/trailer.
The background and font of these credits have immediate connotations of a horror with the dark, dull colors and the faded edges - adding emphasis to the text in the centre. They partially portray an eerie and threatening atmosphere which is an important illusion to have in a horror. The black font on a white background is extremely prominent; the colours completely juxtapose one another... with black having connotations of fear, horror and power - in comparison white portrays the safety, security and purity of the film. We are also able to relate these colour connotations to our characters which is an effective way of creating representations.
The name of the film is written in a different font as it is the most important title. The spaced out letters make it much more prominent on the white background; with the intention that the audience will identify the title and remember it. Also, with relation to the font, the size of the title headings are much larger and clearer than the subtitles... 'Directed by' and 'Edited by'. And this is important again as it is about giving credit to the actors of the film. In the majority of films, the title credits (typically placed at the end of a film/trailer) tend to be a huge Unique Selling Point for them as if there film has a successful, well-known actor in, it is likely that they will be more attracted and engaged by the film. For example, for anyone that has seen Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio; they would know how hugely successful the film was and they would know that DiCaprio is such a successful actor that they would follow him and any films that he features in. And for this reason, displaying the actor names in the credits allow the audiences to know off the actor and as a result want to watch the film.
Despite these specific credits not displaying the actors names, this is something further that we aim to incorporate in our film; however another important USP would be displaying the director of the film. This is another thing that is prevalent in films and trailers as if audiences were to know who directed a film, and alike with the actors; if they had been successful previously... it is likely that they would continue to create successful films and therefore would want to watch there films. Overall, incorporating credits allows audiences to recognise and remember the people involved in the film.
Displaying these kind of titles are also important as typically unless they are the director or are acting in the film... they do not get noticed or praised by audiences. As shown on the left and in our clip above, the credits that are included here are for, the Director of Photography, Production Designer, Costume Designer, Casting and Music. All of which audiences dont really think about when watching a film or trailer - and for this reason it is important that they are included at any stage of the film/trailer, as it is often that the part they play in the creation and build-up to the film/trailer is just more difficult or important as it is for the actors/director.
Despite this software providing us with many features that allowed us to edit and create our trailer - there were barriers that we had to overcome throughout the process - and this was mainly having to render the clips nearly every time we made a slight change.
Rendering processes the layers and effects and saves the preview into a file, which Adobe Premiere Elements can use each time you preview that section of the movie. Once rendered, a section doesn't require re-rendering unless changes are made to it.
This was a barrier during the editing process as it was extremely time consuming and was a set back every time a slight change was made. It was often that this made the software freeze or crash; which understandably is expected with the amount of clips that the software had to deal with... however this was a struggle for us to deal with.
More complex movies require more processing time to display properly. With our trailer having multiple different clips and also adding sound, titles and transitions, etc, it was clear that this was going to become an issue for us however, the software has still allowed to create an effectively edited trailer. We ensured that everything we done was saved after each change in-case the site did go wrong. Also to save time, we rendered the clips more often so each time was shorter, rather than doing it all together at the end where it might be more difficult as there would be more to process.
This is our storyboard that we created using our initial ideas; however this was not our final idea as evident in our actual film. These drawing show a few of the shots that we do actually use in our trailer, for example, the close up shot of the hand and the point of view/reflection shot in the mirror... both of which are effective shots, through the alteration between different views and angles.The drawings were very sketched as shown and these were done in rough until we fully decided on what we were going to do. Following on from this storyboard will be our animatic which is simply our story board edited into an animated film; to create this we will be using the Adobe Premier Elements software, or we are potentially considering using movie maker as the creation of the animatic is quite a simple process of collecting the images/short clips of our storyboard together and adding minimal sound.
What did you find the hardest part of the filming process?
How well do you think the characters fitted in with their surroundings/location?
How have you used elements of sound in your trailer?
DIEGETIC/NON-DIEGETIC
What are your likes and dislikes on the editing software?
ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS
When filming, were there any barriers or problems and how did you work with them?
Why did you choose the location you did?
How did you work well as a filming team?
How do you think is film stands out from others?
Above are questions which we will be asking ourselves. We thought that these might be questions that the audience may want to find out and were the most important to guide them through our trailer. A short clip will be followed after this of our interviews.
Throughout our trailer, we followed the typical representations and stereotypes through following the conventions of a horror film/trailer. Both representation and stereotypes are effective in creating an immediate opinion and judgement against characters and this can either make the audience warm to a a character or be against them and there actions; either way, this slightly more entices the audience.
Firstly, we have incorporated the character of an innocent and vulnerable young girl who is found to be in a daunting situation in a supposedly haunted house. This is stereotypical as the audience would not necessarily expect the young girl to be there alone making the situation more intense; but essentially puts themselves into her shoes of thinking what they would do. Throughout, this would add tension as we, as the audience, would know to expect that something bad will happen and knowing its a horror... its inevitable. In our trailer, the girl is made out to be portrayed as innocent and vulnerable, however this representation is essentially just shown through her child like clothing... making her seem unsure of whats going on and how she does find herself in an unusual situation. This, however could add a twist as she could reflect on this representation later on in the film and this is how it adds tension and engagement with the audience as they would never exactly find out... unless they watch the whole film.
The second character in our trailer is an elderly women which in horror, tend to be represented as evil and quite creepy. The way we have represented this portrayal is through her presence and also the clothing she is wearing. Firstly the netted head scarf round her is partly covering her face and not revealing her whole identity which is quite creepy in the sense that we can't see who she is, also the all black clothing that she is wearing has quite negative connotations such as, evil, power and death. This creates a negative representation of her character which in our horror trailer, we wanted.
The stereotype of elderly people being quite authoritative and wise with there actions is essentially adhered to in this situation.... mainly because of her presence and the way she is appearing in the situation. The idea of the eerie presence of the old women is effective in creating a negative representation against her which we aimed to have and this makes the audience feel more tense as stereo-typically in these situations, something bad happens.
The location/setting of our trailer is in a house and we chose this as we felt like with the characters and story line we had, this was most appropriate and realistic. Also the situation that occurs in our trailer is at night (when the young girl is sleeping) and it would therefore create a more intense atmosphere. However, we have not chosen to create that tense, eerie atmosphere of a haunted/abandoned house... stereotypical of a horror. The reason for not creating this atmosphere as we want it to be more realistic and for the audience to be able to picture the situation. As a typical expectation, people feel safe in their own home; however the representations of the characters we are portraying and the situation that arises subverts to this expectations and as a result adds to the scare of our trailer.
You've acted on feedback well here Sophie - now make sure your journey's docucmentation is in a chronological order. Evidence your video diaries, time-management and annotated storyboard to complete this stage of your G324 portfolio,
This online tutorial was useful to watch to get a general introduction to the software, despite using it last year to edit our opening two minutes... it was useful to reinforce all of the techniques and features that we are able to use on the software. The clip above is just a general guideline for beginners and first time users of the software... however it was beneficial to just be reminded of the basic uses.
This tutorial is a guide to adding sound to your movie/trailer. This was useful for us, particularly because the majority of our sound is going to be added as the sounds in our filming were not as clear and as good quality as we hoped. This clip shows us how to add music, delete audio, scale and add media into our own clip. After watching this, we are now much more confident in adding and editing sound into our clip which is making the editing process a lot easier.
This tutorial was another basic yet useful clip to watch which involved the creation of titles. This involved getting the title background; which is actually through using the paint software, and also the general features of adding and editing the title. So, chagning the font, the size and the colour. The tutorial also shows how you can add credits to your movie/trailer which is quite a simple process and easy to follow. Also, we learnt from the clip that you can also add transitions to the titles which would involve them fading in or out, etc.
Above is our mood-board which is a combination of pictures all influenced from our initial ideas. We have incorporated the majority of these initial ideas into our trailer in order to create the eerie and sinister atmosphere that you would stereo-typically expect from a horror. The mood-board shows multiple ideas that we had, firstly beginning with the age themes. We felt as if age was an important thing to consider in a horror and also to consider the different effects the aged characters would have. To be able to meet these expectations, we incorporated both a young girl and an old women for effect, to contrast the two characters and to follow (and subvert - in some cases) the typical representations of them. The elderly women appears as a threat and quite an eerie character in her clothing and through her general appearance throughout. The young girl, however, is represented to be quite innocent and vulnerable... typically subverting stereotypes of young girls in a horror as they tend to be presented as some sort of curse or evil child.
The majority of the images in our mood-board are filtered and quite dim lighted and few are even black and white. This was intentional as this is the kind of effect/lighting that we will be incorporating in our trailer - and also is something you would expect in a horror. This kind of colour and lighting again create the kind of eerie and sinister atmosphere that we want, which we hope to be effective in our trailer.
Few of the images above also show the location that we intended to use in our trailer, As clear through the pictures that we gathered, the main idea was in a house/bedroom which we did end up doing. This specific choice of location was influence through multiple other films... such as The Conjuring, The Orphanage, Paranormal Activity, Insidious and many more. The main influence of this idea was the feel of combined spaces - creating that enclosed, eerie atmosphere and the idea that there is no-where to go or escape to. Also, when thinking of being at home or in a house, you would immediately think of safety and security however this idea subverts that when the house becomes supposedly haunted with this elderly character. Another initial idea, that related to this was filming at night or in the dark, which would typically be expected when in a bedroom (alike our trailer).
This mood-board is simply an overview of our initial ideas and the majority of which we will/have already incorporated into our trailer. To be able to make our horror trailer most effective, we have followed the conventions of a horror which will hopefully entice the audience.
The aim for our elderly character is to make them appear to be quite innocent; primarily with the representation of what they're wearing. Stereo typically, the idea of an elderly character in a film seems quite unusual; however that is the main idea with having an abnormal character appearance that would make the film more effective and original. The specific colouring of the characters clothing is basic yet co-ordinates and stands out with the background and setting that she is in.
The white netted scar is prominent against the women's black clothing and the netting is effective in covering her face, partially hiding her identity. Stereo-typically, this is a piece of clothing that an elderly women would be shown to wear... therefore making the character more realistic and natural rather than being dressed in something that would not be expected by the audience.
The all black outfit may just be noticed as being her own nightwear and therefore does not need to have any meaning to it. However the colour black has many negative connotations such as death, mystery and power. This is conventional of a horror and is often something that we expect to appear to make us have negative opinions towards the character. The white colour of the scarf, however, represents innocence and purity... both immediate stereotypes that we would think of when seeing an elderly women.
The clothing of the characters is most effective in creating a representation in film, as it essentially suggests a lot about the character (wealth and status) rather than just stereotyping against them because of there age or gender. When portraying a character, it is vital that there outfits fit them well and gives off the connotations that we intend them to (being innocence and vulnerability of both the young girl and women). The costumes that we have chosen create the kind of innocent and vulnerable look and therefore makes the audience believe that this is what they are like. This will be effective as it follows further through the film as it would essentially become more of a surprise and unexpected turn if the characters were to change the way the audience would've expected them to act.
For the young girl, the aim again is to make her look innocent and vulnerable... in a way that you would expect a child to be at night and in the situation that she finds herself in. To be able to create this representation, we chose the stereotypical clothing that you would assume a child to be wearing at night - pyjamas. In the trailer, we have a close up shot of the girls feet as she steps out of the bed and this shot specifically shows her as she steps into her bunny, childish sleepers. This again creates a realistic situation of which she would do normally when she gets out of bed; though making all of this seem like a normal situation with the way she is dressed and the location (being in her bedroom), it will eventually become more of a shock when the situation becomes bad with the intention to frighten the audience.
The image on the right is of the tripod; this is used to support the camera when filming to get a steady shot and also a smooth rotation by turning the handle. This piece of equipment was supplied to us by the school which we are allowed to take out to use for our filming. Benefits of using this is primarily to get a steady shot as it is difficult filming free hand unless you want an unsteady hand-held effect. The tripod also allows us to film at different levels; as shown in the image, we are able to adjust the height of the shot between three different levels. This can be effective in creating shots from different levels but also different angles where we are able to adjust the pointing of the camera using the handle. We are able to adjust the camera position left or right and up or down, creating a high or low angle shot if wanted. The tripod is easy to use allowing us to successfully create different shots using the different levels and adjustments.
To film our trailer we are using a Nikon cool-pix L840 camera which is easy to use and has many different features.We are using this to film our trailer mainly because of the high quality and to be able to film at a high resolution. The main thing that we needed to consider was the storage as we found out from last year filming our opening two minutes, we need to film each clip multiple times to get the best possible shot and angle. Despite the majority of the sound in our trailer going to be added, we will still be using some of natural, diegetic sounds from the original filming which will be useful as the sound on the Nikon Camera is of high quality.
