Photographs from First attempt Filming

Here are a few images that I took during our first attempt of filming to show our setting for the interview style that we were trying to create and what equipment we used to set the scene such as the curtains, the interview style chairs facing eachother and our actor interacting with the camera as we were going to include a scene where we had our actor comunicating with the director as we had seen this many times in example interviews that we used in our research. However the time limit on filming was getting more closer to an end and we had to change our setting from the one featured in these photographs as it was unavailable for use most days therefore we were restricted to what filming equipment we could use as props in that extra scene. We then decided not to include it after all as it was also using up too much time and 'teaser trailers' only usually have a time limit of 30-90 seconds ideally.

'Avenge' Teaser Trailer Final

This is our final version of our 'Teaser Trailer' 'Avenge'.

Film Magazine Front Cover Final

This is our Film Magazine front cover for our own Film Magazine named 'Film Frenzy' we decided to name it this as it sounded catchy and memorable due to the alliteration and we thought we would have two words instead of one as it utilises the page space better but we also noticed in our research how 'Total Film' magazine had also done this therefore we followed media conventions by this. We decided to use a colour scheme within our taglines of grey, red and white to emphasise the horror-esque theme of this particular issue but we also only used just three colours so that our audience would not be distracted from what is intended to attract in taglines for example 'Top Ten Villians of the Decade'- We used 'Top Ten Villians of the Decade' to again connote the horror theme and focus the issue around our character that stars in our film 'Avenge'. We also used some of our classmates film names 'La Femme', 'Unbalanced' and 'Snapshot Reloaded' to use examples of promotion and advertising films. We used Jimmy (our main star) as the main image on the front for the audience's attention to be mainly focused on him. We used typical media conventions as we imported a barcode, date of issue, price and country of sale on our magazine front cover as magazines of all genres include these aspects. We also decided to include a website 'filmfrenzyonline.com' on the front of the magazine that the audience could access to use an example of viral marketing.

Film Poster Research

Here is a variation of Horror film posters that we used as research and inspiration for our own poster. We have identified the fact that every single poster featured uses red in at least one aspect of the poster and it seems to be an incredibly popular idea for the main titles especially. We have also observed that many of these examples include quotations from well respected film magazines and newspaper review snippets- this is an idea that we took into account whilst creating our film poster but decided not to as we did not want people's attention to refrain from the main title.

Film Magazine Front Cover Ideas & Development

Here is a black and white version that we sampled for the film magazine front cover but we decided not to use this version as the grey tones were too similiar to the grey fonts that we had used on the taglines and titles. This is the final edited version of the image that we placed onto our magazine front cover, here the brightness and contrast, hue and saturation and exposure was hightened to highlight Jimmy's face more and to show how he is in the spotlight and is the main character in focus.

This image has been cropped and outlined with the lasso tool on 'Abode Photoshop Elements' ready to be placed onto the film magazine front as there background on that is also black so it will instantly blend. The next stage in editing for this image would be to alter the lighting, brightness and contrast and saturation to add more colour to and to define Jimmy's face more.

This is the original un-edited version of the final photograph that we used for our film magazine front cover. We knew that we were going to cut out all of the background in this image and just use the outline of Jimmy's frame to place in the centre of the film magazine front cover. We also knew that we were going to have to alter the lighting as it appeared to be quite shiny on Jimmy's face in this original image, we also needed to alter the red-eye that appeared from where I used the flash as it was night time. This is one of the un-edited images that we used as part of our ideas for our film magazine front cover. We decided not to use this image as the model that we used was not pulling the right expression that we were looking for so we decided to see if it would work better with Jimmy looking downwards and to the side, this proved to work better for a more sullen and mysterious look linking to the violent character that he is trying to portray on the front of the film magazine front cover.

Final Draft of 'AVENGE' Film Poster

This is the final draft of our 'AVENGE' Film Poster. We are finally happy with our poster after all the photographs that we took as ideas and selected the most successful one to edit on 'Abode Photoshop Elements' a lot of editing took place in which you can read further about in my 'Film poster ideas' blog. We think that our poster targets our 15+ target audience well as we used a girl of similiar age on the front for this purpose, we also decided to get some 'audience feedback' to see what people thought of our poster and to test whether it did reach our target audience expectations- all of this information is included in my 'Audience Feedback' blog.

Development of Film Poster

This is our final draft of our film poster. This is the fully edited version that we have blown up larger. Originally we did have the small print, actors/actresses names and release date in white as we thought it would match the background but we decided that black would be more legible for the audience and we also thought that it had more of a horror take on the poster.

This is the final draft our our 'teaser' poster, like the final draft of our film poster we decided for the black text to remain the same, the only difference is it has no small print as we noticed in our research of other 'teaser' posters that they too did not include small print just simple a rough release date or 'coming soon'.



This is what our 'teaser' poster looked like with white text instead, we also experimented with putting a website address underneath the 'coming soon' just to see what it looked like but we thought we would keep it simple but effective with just a 'coming soon' as 'teaser' posters included very little information enabling a suspense to build up as the audience gradually finds out about this new release.


This photograph is the final image that will be included on the final draft of our film poster, all that is left to include is small print and the actor and actress's name for it to be complete.

This is an example of attempting to edit the title, here we used ' Adobe Photoshop elements'. We used many tools such as 'the 'lasso tool' and 'eraser' to edit the title and text of our film name 'Avenge'- here we tried to create a bruised effect mixing the colours purple, yellow and green on to her skin, however this was proving quite difficult and it did not look like what we imagined it to but later on in the proccess we discovered the 'burn tool' on photoshop enabling us to score the name 'Avenge' onto Grace's chest making it look much more realistic and horror-esque.

This is another stage in the development of our film poster, again we used 'photoshop elements' here we edited using the 'brightness and contrast tool', 'levels', 'hue and saturation' to give Grace a washed out and pale look to indicate that she is the victim in our film. We also 'cropped' the image to abolish any uneccassary space and the 'lasso' tool to cut out any excess background and to define her jawline so that the screaming position of her mouth would be the main focus of the audience's attention.

This is what the original image that we used for editing looked like, as you can see we have cut out the background in which we can see part of Grace's t-shirt and hair and changed to background to plain white enabling everything from just below her eyes to be the main focus.

This was one of the images we took whilst trying to get the perfect shot/angle of Grace's face for the film poster. This image was not suitable as it included too much of Grace's t-shirt and we wanted the top of her neckline and chest to be bare to portray the innocence of her character. Also, it is incorrect as part of her nose is cut out at the top of the photograph and we wanted this to be included.

This was one of the photographs ideas that I took for the film poster. We decided not to use this image as the official film poster image as we decided that we could not work with it for it to become a horror based image as it looks more like an image used for a 'romance' or 'rom-com' due to the 'love' necklace that Grace is wearing and the pale pink scarf was covering up the focus point in which we were going to place the title.

Film Magazine Front Cover research

Here are some Film Magazine front covers from the U.K's two largest sellers 'Empire' and 'Total Film' that I have used as research and influence for my own film magazine 'Film Frenzy'. I have used these as examples as 3 out of 4 of them include the character(s) rather than just the actor/actress featured on the front of the cover, I think this works very effectively as it attracts and informs the audience to the most exclusive films at that current time although exclusive interviews with actors/actresses can also have a positive affect on the audience depending on the popularity of the star in which they are to read about. Therefore we have decided to include our actor 'in character' on the front of our magazine 'Film Frenzy' front cover as it seems to be much more affective on the audience and we feel that the magazine front covers that have the character instead of the actor/actress him/herself is more gripping e.g. our favourite example is 'The Dark Knight's' 'Joker' due to the fact that it is one of the scenes taken from the film but also how the make up that Heath Ledger was put in, in the photograph was then colour co-ordinated with the texts and fonts used on the film magazine front cover and this is what we intend to do with our own advertising campaign.

Animatic

This is a selection of our teaser trailer storyboards all put together to create an animatic film. It reveals some of the shots in which we are considering using when we film our trailer e.g. in the first shot we used a medium close up on the reporter's face to draw the audience's attention to the reporter and what she is presenting, also we have researched other interviews/reports in institutions such as 'E! Entertainment' and 'GMTV's Entertainment Interviews' observing how they use conventions such as these which therefore influenced our ideas for filming.

Audience Questionnaire

Film Questionnaire.

What age group are you?
12-15 16-19 20-25 26-30 30 +

What gender are you?
Male Female

Do you enjoy watching horror movies?
Yes No

If you replied'Yes' in the previous answer, What sort of horror movies do you like? (Select as applicable)
Psychological Slasher Supernatural Macabre (gothic)
Suspense None

Do you think trailers are important in deciding whether you want to see an upcoming film?
Yes No

In your opinion do trailers reveal too much about the film?
Yes No Sometimes n/a

Do you have a preferred actor/actress that you would like to see in an upcoming horror?
Name______________________ No preference

Does a film poster contribute to your interest in a film?
Yes No

Do you read film magazines, if so which ones?
Yes No

In relation to the last question, would reading exclusive material on an upcoming film encourage you to see it?
Yes No

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire.

Initial Ideas: Our Film Poster

Sketched Poster Idea
Paint version of Poster

Genre Research: Horror

The Nature and Effectiveness of Horror Films: Horror films are unsettling films made to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to effect and reveal our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking ways while entertaining us at the same time in an experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, strange and alarming events. They deal with our vulnerable sides and fears, our nightmares, our alienation, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality. Horror films are also known as chillers, scary movies, spookfests, and the macabre.

Some information was gathered from the following Links: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091109072841AADfQUG
http://www.movie-page.com/stuff/article-horrorflicks.htm
http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html

Types of Horror Films:
Slasher
Macabre (gothic)
Psychological
Suspense

Slasher flicks: Halloween, Friday the 13th, Saw, The Scream Series, The Hitcher, Slumber Party Massacre, Freddy Krugar: Nightmare on Elm Street.

Monster Movies: An American werewolf in London, Alien, The Blob, Poltergeist.

Smart/Psychological Horror: Rosemary's Baby, The Devil's Advocate, Event Horizon, Silence Of The Lambs.

Gore Galore: Dead Alive, Dead Alive 2, Living Dead Series, Event Horizon, Wishmaster.

Poster Research Continued..

Grace and I used these two 'teaser' posters for the dark comedy/horror 'Jennifer's Body' starring Megan Fox and the vampire-esque television series 'True Blood' as we find it interesting just how similiar they are. However we like the idea of the girl featuring on the poster in extreme close up but we feel that the bright red lips and the blood drips symbolises a more vampire concerned plot anc character so we decided to use similiar conventions like the angle of the camera and the pale skin but different coloured make up e.g. pink lips and blonde hair on our own poster creating a more innocence character rather than the vampy look that is portrayed in these two posters.

Horror Film Poster Research

This is also a teaser trailer for the 2009 3d feature 'My Bloody Valentine'. This was an effective poster to use for horror film research as it contrasts with both the 'Saw' and 'H2' poster as the suspect and the victim are both featured on the front, however the suspect, holding an axe is only a silhouette giving the audience the smallest hints of narrative possible in attempt to retain mystery. This is an idea that we are definately considering as this convention would attract an audience to a horror poster as they would be curious.

This is a teaser poster for the recent Halloween release, 'Halloween 2'/'H2' as it releases little information e.g. only the title, director and the date of release. I have used this poster in my research as it contrasts with the 'Saw' poster due to the fact that the suspect is featured on the front of the poster, rather than the victim, helping me to gather ideas as to what characters I will include on my main poster. I think that the appreviation of 'H2' in fiery colours is effective as it suggests that the audience are already familiar with the the 'Halloween' series. The teaser poster for 'Saw' is similiar to 'H2' as the infamous 'Michael Myers' is featured also in black and white suggesting dark content.

This is a teaser poster that was released for the film 'Saw'. I have included this poster in my film poster research as I think that it portrays typical conventions of a horror poster due to its colours e.g. the bright red and black and the black and white image enhances with blood red on only certain aspects of the nurse, this poster suggests the narrative as we can tell that the nurse is the victim due to the expression on her face, this is an aspect of horror posters that I wanted to research to see which of my characters should be included on the front. I have also used this poster in my research as I wanted to explore what taglines horror posters use. This gave me some ideas as to what colours I am going to include in my film poster and what my tagline may be.

The Conventions of Teaser Trailers

Teaser Trailers are short trailers that are used to advertise upcoming films, games or television features. The main reason why they are named 'teasers' is because they are shown usually long in advance (approx. one or one and a half years) before the film is released and many are released as the film is in production/being edited and therefore they may feature scenes or alternative versions of scenes that are not in the completed film or they contain very little, if any footage from the actual film. Teaser trailers are unlike theatrical trailers as they are much shorter, normally lasting from 30-60+ seconds in order to keep storylines, characters and the general mystery of the film a surprise from the audience. 'Teasers' are usually primarily made for big-budget and blockbuster movies e.g. a current teaser trailer 'Iron Man 2' however they are also used to promote independent and cult films e.g. 'An Education'. Teaser trailers give the audience a taste of what is expected in a particular film until longer trailers or the films are released.

Hollyoaks Later

Hollyoaks Later-Essay Plan
How does 'Hollyoaks Later' help to attract the target audience?
Introduction paragraph- mention the target audience and briefly explain how 'Hollyoaks Later' attracts the audience
First paragraph- general information about 'Hollyoaks later', when it started and who it was aimed to attract etc. How subjects that cannot be discussed within usual 'Hollyoaks' are revealed throughout 'Hollyoaks' Later e.g. sex, drug abuse and more extreme violence
Second paragraph- The reason for 'Hollyoaks Later' and what age group/audience is attracted to the time that it is on t.v
Third paragraph- About the characters that are selected to be within the storylines in 'Hollyoaks Later', whether they are new or regular characters
Fourth Paragraph- The contast in 'Hollyoaks' and 'Hollyoaks Later' and whether other soaps
Fifth Paragraph-Discuss whether 'Hollyoaks Later' is a success or not, maybe include some audience figures for proof
Conclusion-mentioned valid points and conclude

Media: Eastenders/Hollyoaks

Eastenders and Hollyoaks both have their fair share of similarities and differences, the main difference being the way in which they represent youth. The cast of Hollyoaks are all well made-up, fashionable, slim and popular characters (even the adult cast are always dressed in style) all to attract the attention of a young audience, this contrasts to a varied cast in Eastenders e.g. Whitney is dressed in clothes from the market and gold jewelery the majority of the time which leads the audience to believe that this is what a 16-year old girl that lives in London looks like. However the two soaps do have quite similiar settings e.g. Eastenders has the local pub, The Queen Vic and Hollyoaks has The Dog in the Pond and they each have a launderette, a beauty/hair salon and a corner shop however their nightlife facilities are different and successfully target their audience as Hollyoaks has a Student Union bar reflecting University life and where the cast are likely to be and Eastenders has the R&R club that is targeted at the young people in albert square but not neccassarily teenagers. Another contrast in settings is Hollyoaks domestic setting is mainly in the University halls and Eastender's is in the houses of the families in Albert Square, this also gives the audience clues as to who the soap is aimed at.
Hollyoaks and Eastenders storylines are also displayed very differently as Eastenders like to see their dramatic and serious storylines build up over a number of months possibly a year e.g. Stacey and Max's affair where as Hollyoaks' storylines appear a lot more lighthearted a lot of the time until a dramatic incident is given to the audience by surprise. A lot of realistic issues such as employment, gcse's, relationships and image are reflects in Hollyoaks possibly enabling the audience to relate. Eastenders issues mainly display violence, affairs and relationships which are not as personal to their audience compared to Hollyoaks. The two soaps both get thousands of viewings per week despite the fact that Hollyoaks has a higher volume than Eastenders but then again, this all depends on the purpose, the audience.