Action upon feedback

Now that I have received feedback from my tutor and students I know have a clearer understanding of what to include in my trailer and what to improve on.

I should have more footage of other scenes as it adds variety and does not give away where my story is set or the main location. More natural sounds should be included such as running and footsteps. If the original footage has bad natural sounds, then I should always re-record it on the spot.

More text will be added and better fonts instead of simple fonts.

What I have learnt from my spoof trailer

I have learnt that attepmting to film everything all at once would be ideal as you do not want to keep going there and back with loads of equipment. Also, whilst filming pictures should always be taken so that it can be used for references or upcoming posters and magazine covers that we need to create at a later period.

We made a spoof of out original narrative because I think that it would be easier to do that so we can have a rough idea of what to do for our real one and we could also just have some fun before we get down to doing the real trailer that goes towards our grade.

General Feedback

I have recieved feedback from students and teachers about my spoof trailer.
Overall, everyone was pleased with it and liked the way it had been edited and shot. However, I did too recieve some constructive criticism. One teacher said that I had not included enough natural sounds as I had muted it because it was not professional, I now know to film sound professionally and learn to record sound another time if neccessary.

Also, I had needed more non digetic sounds as throughout the whole trailer most of it was taken up with a heartbeat. I was suggested that I include more sounds such as heavy breathing/panting and running footsteps. They had said this because it will emphasise more information and detail about what is going on in the scene.

Overall, I think the feedback was good and I know that I could touch up on some key parts of the trailer to make it much more effective for the audience to watch and scare them a lot more with tense, scary and loud sounds.

Feedback 3 - by Keira Stanley

"Did the trailer scare you?
Yes.
If yes, how?
There was creepy flashing images of the masked man throughout the trailer.
Did you notice any unnatural sound effects?
No.
If yes, where?
-
Did the teaser make you want to watch the film?
Yes.
Overall, did you like the trailer and why?
I was 50/50 about it because it seemed a bit too scary for me to watch but I still wanted to see it as it kept me interested!

Thank you for your time in filling out our questionnaire, Keira. Your positive comments and input is appreciated.

Feedback 2 - by Mohamed Suleman

"Did the trailer scare you?
Not really.

If yes, how?
-

Did you notice any unnatural sound effects?
Yes, I noticed that the heartbeat was not a real sound as a scared heartbeat would beat faster.

If yes, where?
Throughout the trailer.

Did the teaser make you want to watch the film?
Yes and no because it did interest me, but it could be even better.

Overall, did you like the trailer and why?
I did, I especially liked the quick flashing images of the masked person."

Thank you for your time, Mohamed. Your feedback and constructive criticism will be noted.

Feedback 1 - by Sasha Lashkariani

"Did the trailer scare you?

Yes.

If yes, how?

At the end when a sudden loud noise interrupted the heartbeat.

Did you notice any unnatural sound effects?

No.

If yes, where?

-

Did the teaser make you want to watch the film?

No.

Overall, did you like the trailer and why?

I did like the trailer, however I think it should have been longer and show more parts of the film as it seemed like it only showed scenes in the park/forrest."

Thank you for your time in filling out our questionnaire, Sasha. Your input is appreciated.

Feedback Questions

Hi, I have done a quick teaser trailer for my A2 Media Studies and would appreciate some quick and short feedback, it will take up 2 minutes of your time and will be much appreciated. Thank you.

The Man Teaser Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=batPkXjuBls

Did the trailer scare you?

If yes, how?

Did you notice any unnatural sound effects?

If yes, where?

Did the teaser make you want to watch the film?

Overall, did you like the trailer and why?

Thank you for your time.

Spoof trailer Narrative

Our spoof trailer narrative was a parody of our real narrative, based on a 'true' story of Slenderman.

• Starts off with Slenderman turning the corner revealing himself
• Text comes and says 'This Halloween' with editing which makes the text shiver
• We are then taken back to the slenderman scene where you will see him just standing
• Cuts straight away to a handheld shot of a person running and looking down at their feet
• A quick 1 second text slide is shown saying 'HE'S BACK'
• A 0.1 second clip of slenderman's mask is shown sort of as a glitch or effect to scare the audience
• We are then taken back to the running scene and shows the person turning around to see the house he is running away from and slenderman is juxtaposed into the middle of the footage
• 'FOR REVENGE' text is shown and another 0.1 second image of slenderman is shown again for extra scariness
• A 3 second shot of running appears again
• The person turns around and Slenderman is suddenly behind them and attacks
• Just as they are attacked 'RUN FASTER' flashes past and another image of slenderman is shown quickly right before it all goes black
• We are then shown a struggle and everything becomes blurred
• Non digetic sound of a metal door closing (thump like) sound is heard and 'THE MAN' is shown and the heartbeat fades away to insinuate that the person has died.
• Credits are shown with action music in the background

The parody of this is that Slenderman usually does not run and has not been seen running.
Also, the end text where is says 'RUN FASTER' is part of it, too, as in a lot of horror films, they will tell you to do certain things such as 'DONT LOOK BACK' or something scary. We decided to tell the audience and the person to run faster, but however, just as that is said, slenderman catches up with the person and they are 'killed' (we do not know what happens to him, the audience must use their imagination).

The Apparition Trailer (2012)

The Apparition released on August 24th 2012 is a new horror film and implies that ghosts and spirits are all based on your imagination and if you believe it to be true, then it will. I think this idea is extremely clever as it plays on the audience's imagination by telling them that the characters are just imagining the ghost itself, too. This puts the audience in their shoes and could scare them even after the movie has ended because of the film's main plot, imagination.

From watching the trailer, I can see that this film has taken a scene from 'The Grudge'. The famous 'Crawling out of a TV scene' is seen but done with a washing machine (I think).

Overall, the trailer was frightful and was done really well, with use of both scopophilia and handheld shots. It uses a voice over at the beginning and text, too, which is unusual and could be looked into further for my own trailer. Another unusual thing about this trailer that stood out for me was the fact that they went straight in with it rather than showing the production company and delaying it until near the middle of the trailer.

Spoof Horror Trailer - The Man

This is our finished spoof horror trailer of 'The Man' uploaded on YouTube for anyone to watch and give feedback!

Spoof trailer camera shots, camera angles and editing

For our spoof trailer we had focused on including as many camera angles as we could to practice for our real horror trailer. For example, we had a low angle shot of the villain to make him look superior and have more power against the victim. This was purposely done by using a handheld shot and pretending to fall over (like in all horror films, the victim MUST fall over at some point) which then lowers the camera and looks up towards the villain.

As for camera shots, we tried to include all types of shots that we had learnt during our AS Media class. We had included shots such as:

• Long Shot
• Handheld Shot
• Extreme Long Shot
• Medium Close Up Shot
• Close Up Shot

We had included all of this to show that we are aware of the camera shots and will be using them in our final horror trailer. I think that using different camera shots shows variety within our shooting and makes the trailer much more interesting rather than just having one or two shots.

With editing, we edited our video on iMovie on the Mac, which I think is much easier than using Adobe Premier on Windows. It was my first time using it, however, I had managed to get used to it within half an hour and started properly editing our footage. Digetic and non-digetic sounds were added or enhanced to emphasise certain parts of the footage. We had added a heartbeat in the background which could be seen as both digetic and non digetic as we wouldnt normally be able to hear a person's heartbeat however, we still could.

From previous research, we knew that the trailer should not be played in a narrative order so the footage had been mixed up to give the audience a teaser of what the film could potentially about, we aimed to give them enough information to let them know what it is about but not enough to give away the storyline.

Between the scenes, we cleverly cut a fraction of a second of the villain's mask into random parts of the trailer to shock the audience as they would not expect it. Text was also shown before the mask is shown to emphasise on what they are here for.

At the end of the trailer, credits are shown with music in the background. Though I like it, I think it can be improved by making it more realistic by making the text smaller and adding a copyright symbol at the end.

Narrative So Far

The Man

The man is a horror scopophilia film. It is based around an urban myth of a creature called ‘Slender Man’.

The film is set in the present day; however, it will be based on a home film that was recorded 60 years ago which was owned by the recorder, Margaret. She had passed away recently and her house had been abandoned. A group of 4 teenagers decided to break into the house at night for fun and discovered the home video in the attic. After watching the video, 2 of them were scared of the video. The others were calling them names and said there was nothing to worry about. Then they proceeded to wreck the house.

They all go home. The next time they meet up at the house, one of the teens looks out of the window and sees slender man. None of the others believe him and make fun of him. The teen becomes hysterical so the others lock him out of the house as a joke. He bangs on the door hysterically as the others laugh before suddenly falling silent. The others think he is messing around but when they go to let him in he is nowhere to be found. They come to the conclusion that he must have found another way into the house and is hiding potentially trying to scare them. They split up and look for him in the other rooms, one of the boys, Jeffery, looks out the window and see’s a tall shady black figure underneath the street’s lamp, he is unusually tall and lanky, with extra long hands. Jeffery immediately realises that he just saw slender man and ducks under the window in shock; he then calms himself and looks again. The figure is gone. Jeffery tells the others but once again they do not believe him, thinking he is in on the joke. They soon realise that their friend is genuinely missing and the whole group begins to panic.

They decide that the safest thing to do is get away from the house and return to their own homes. They make their way down their usual route down an alley but are cornered by Slenderman. They run away in the opposite direction, towards the woods, Slenderman’s preferred domain. The leader urges the group on, saying if they can make it through the woods they can escape through the other side. They run from Slenderman but every time they reach the end of a path he is standing waiting for them. All they have to light their way is the light from their phones and these soon stop working leaving them in complete darkness (Slenderman interferes with technology)

The group have no choice but to use matches to keep Slenderman away (he doesn’t like light) but these don’t last very long. The film ends with the group desperately grabbing matches and trying to keep them alight for as long as possible, but they eventually run out and are taken by Slenderman. The audience think that all the teens have been killed but it is revealed at the end that one of them managed to escape as they had a torch in their bag. The screen goes black. Dot of light from torch gets bigger and runs past the camera.

Start of Comedy Trailer.

My group and I have started filming parts for our trailer. At first we had started off with collecting ideas from current films and trailers and attempting to re-create scenes for practice.

Today, we filmed a youngster urinating (acted) in a public area and therefore suffers great consequences (mockery of films and how teenagers should suffer or die because they are doing wrong/bad things) from a masked villain that watches from behind.

I am currently editing the video footage and will post it up as soon as it is of a good standard.

The Slender Man Documentary

Here is a short documentary about Slender Man and his origins.

Trailer Research

With the use of the internet I have been researching other A2 horror trailers I have found, I have done this to see how others from previous years have attempted to shoot theirs, focusing on camera angles, editing and non-digetic sounds.

The Man: Ideas for our trailer

For the past week, my group, Cleo, Hafsa and Mahek have been coming up with several ideas for our trailer. We have had to think of the whole story so we would know what parts to include in our trailer and when to add them in.

My group was influenced by the film 'The Blair Witch Project' in which uses a lot of the audience's imagination to scare them instead of using CGI and overly exaggerated effects in films such as 'Cabin In The Woods'.

Our film/trailer will be about an urban myth/legend 'Slenderman'. He is a creature of the unknown and has a tall shady dark figure. He has been known to abduct children and has been allegedly caught in 'photographs' of children playing in a park.

Slenderman has been around for hundreds of years but only recently people are noticing him and has been circulating the internet scaring those with weak minds. It has been said that if you fear him, he will come for you.

So, my group and I want to base our film on him and we have already arranged costumes and designs for the character itself. We are hoping to film once the story has been written up and the actors and actress' have been chosen.

The name of our film is called, 'The Man' this is done because I want it to be mysterious and let people think, 'Who is the man?' When a film title sounds mysterious it gives off the impression that it is scary so this would be a good film name overall.

Here is a short extract from the story:

‘…She had passed away recently and her house had been abandoned. A group of 4 teenagers, decided to break into the house at night for fun and discovered the home video in the attic. After watching the video, 2 of them were scared of the video. The others were calling them names and said there was nothing to worry about. Then they proceeded to wreck the house.

However, after the group disbanded one of the boys…’

Conventions within a trailer.

The film itself and the trailer has completely different conventions. A trailer will never tell you what the film is about, but only parts of it, which will leave you wanting to know more.

A few conventions of trailers could be:
- The title of the film will always show at the end
- The story line of the film will never be shown in order
- There are ellipses within a trailer
- The non-digetic sound (music) should be in-sync with the clip being played
- Voice overs
- Action is interspersed
- Should build climax
- Showcase the stars of the film (usually before the title is shown)

Why Are We Becoming Desensitised to horror Movies?

Today's horror movies are majorly based on gore and computer generated imagery, they are used to 'scare' the audience, however, it all seems too fake sometimes and unreal. Things that we see in horror may rarely happen or apply to real life scenarios. gore and CGI may have scared the audience when it was newly developed and new to horror, but as the years pass, we get the same plots and same outcome, lots of gore and CGI.

I do not think the audience is desensitised to true psychological horrors that can happen to anyone in the audience in real life. Films like 'Paranormal Activity' leave people so frightened that even after the film, they are scared. 'Cabin in the Woods' a horror film which has too much gore and CGI and so much horror is involved, it makes us think that non of it can happen to us in which we do not really have a fear for it. Paranormal Activity is shot within someone's house, using poltergeist like effects which do not use much editing can scare people and using people imagination to conjure parts of the film. 'The Blair Witch Project' also does the same and it has no special effects at all and was filmed with an extremely low budget.

Audience Theory

Audience theory is wondering whether or not there may be a link between screen violence and real life aggression.

There have been assumptions that Rambo was the cause of the Hungerford Massacre and that Child's Play 3 was the cause of James Bulgar's murder.

It can be argued that media and horror films can influence real life actions, however, it can only be agreed to a certain point as the human body responds differently within each person, I think that if you were to be sane, nothing that the media portrays to you can differ your sanity and cause you to do something harmful to another human being.