First Draft Review and Feedback

My first draft went well and in the most part I stuck to my storyboard, only changing a couple of slides and taking a few out where necessary. Although the draft made sense, it is not yet complete as it is missing more of the story and the cliffhanger ending. In my next draft I will and more to the part of the trailer that I have already done in order to make it easier to understand. I will also try to finish the whole trailer so that in my third draft I can focus on fixing and improving smaller and more subtle aspects of my trailer, and re-film parts where necessary. I may change some of the sound so that music is playing in the first part of the trailer as well as the second. I will also need to change the spelling on my title "Vengeance" as in my first draft I spelled it "Vengance".  

My teachers gave me some feedback for my first draft of my trailer and this is what they said...

"A lack of research is shown in your product. You could have got a desk and out it in the green room, put papers and an iPad to create verisimilitude and green screen the background to a news scene. Do the books in the classroom really look good? The cabinet in the media office would be more convincing. More thought needs to be put into the small details."

I will consider this when filming my second draft and plan my time more wisely so that I don't have to rush certain scenes. I will go back and re shoot the news and classroom scenes so that the environment is more realistic.

FIRST DRAFT

Recording The Voice Over

My research showed that I needed to have a voice over in my trailer as it is a very popular convention of the genre. I have chosen to have my main actress narrating a part of the trailer to give the audience more of an insight into the story. Luckily I take Music Technology at college, and so I have access to the recording studio and have the knowledge of how to record voice. I booked a studio session and went in with my actress and the script. Here is the script:

Dana- I keep having this dream. Someone, something is following me. Every night when I'm asleep I see it, I see her, I see death. Sometimes my dreams become reality, and sometimes, they come back to haunt me.

As you can see this gives a quick back story as to what lead up to the events int he trailer and re-enforces the themes of the horror film.

Here is a quick overview of how I went about recording the voice over -
1.Set up the microphone so that it was the correct height for the actress to sit comfortably.
2. Set levels. This gave the actress a chance to practice through the script within the studio environment while I set the levels. This involved getting the right volume so that the voice is not too quiet, but also not so loud that it distorts.
3. Routed the sound to a recording program on the computer so that I could have a digital copy of the audio to take with me to the edit suite.

I then took the voice over and added it to

Cast List

Cast member 1 - Lyndsey Cairns - College girl

I chose Lyndsey to play the role of the college girl mostly because she shares the same free lessons at college as me and Dana, making it easy to find a time to film where all three of us were available. I also had an idea in mind about what I wanted this character to look like, and I wanted her to have blonde hair so I also chose Lyndsey as she fits the the character's appearance well. She has also done small parts of acting for me in the past for AS Film, so I knew that she had experience and was not shy in front of the camera.





Cast member 2 - Dana Buckby - Main protagonist and antagonist.

I chose Dana to be the main character for 3 reasons. Firstly I have used her as an actress before in my AS Film, so I know she is a good and competent actress. Secondly she lives close to me and close to the locations so transport will not be an issue. Lastly she is available at the same times as me as we work on the same day so we had the same free days.

Dana was not planned to play the antagonist, however on the day we were filming my other actress let me down so she suggested that we film her dressed as the antagonist just so that I could put a first draft together, however I had constructed the costume so that you could not see the antagonists face, and so when I edited it together you could not tell it was the same actress. I decided therefore that it would be easier to use the shots I had already filmed than re-shoot using another actress, as it would have looked basically the same anyway.



Cast member 3 - Kelsey Foster - Newsreader

I chose Kelsey for the newsreader scene mostly because of her voice. She is from the south of England and so has a more formal accent typical of a news reader. She speaks clearly and you can hear what she is saying. She also shares my free lessons at college, making it easy for us to set a time to film. She also has a formal appearance (e.g. no facial piercings or un-natural hair colour) typical of a newsreader, making her the perfect actress for the role.

Costumes

Choosing costumes is an important part of the pre-production as the character needs to have an appropriate costume to have the desired effect on the audience. The costume can change how the audience perceive the character, and in something as short as a film trailer, first impressions are very important.

I chose the costume for the main character to be jeans, a t-shirt and a smart/casual coat. I think that this fairly ordinary costume helps you to relate to the character, as she is not specifically tied to a certain group of young people. I decided that she should wear a "wolverine" t-shirt as this is very popular with young people. The red on the t-shirt along with the dark colour of the jacket are conventional of the genre, with red representing blood and danger, and the dark coat representing the darkness of the genre. Her hair is in an ordinary style so that the audience is not distracted by it, and it is not in the way of her face so that facial expressions can be seen more clearly.

With this character I decided that a white jumper with "love" written on it would help set her apart from the main character. The message on it and the fact that it is white connotes purity, and helps the audience to associate her as a good character. It also matches with her hair colour and makes her come across as a positive character. The glasses help to make her look intelligent. This is important to her character as she is the one who helps the protagonist and has a lot of knowledge of the evil entity and how to overcome it.

The costume used for the antagonist took the most time to prepare. I decided on dark shades with little or no colour to make her blend in to the scene more, making her look as though she is part of the creepy setting. I decided that covering her face would  make her seem more mysterious, and hiding her identity means that the audience cannot categorise or make assumptions about her, making her more creepy. I chose the lacy design of the scarf and dress as this is conventional of horror films, with the old fashion style giving the character an odd quality.

This is the costume for the newsreader character. It consists of a white blouse and a black suit jacket. I decided on this outfit as you only see the top part of the actress so the trousers didn't matter. I chose this as they are smart and they are typical of a news reader as seen in the image. They are plain and fit in with the professional image of a formal news presenter.

The Camera

For my filming I used a Canon Legria HFR506. This camera records in 1080p HD and has optical image stabilizer technology which reduces camera shake, which is good for hand held scenes. It has 57X advanced zoom and records in two formats: MP4 and AVCHD, which gives you more options for the editing stage. It also allows you to watch your footage back to see if the clip you filmed came out as you had intended. I enjoyed working with this camera, however I did encounter some issues. When I first put my SD card in the camera, it would not recognize it, and therefore I could not record onto it. I had to Google the issue and found out that I had to go into the settings to initialize the card. After I did this it recorded fine. I also could not find the white balance option on the camera, meaning that my clips took on an orange hue. I will try to resolve this issue in post production, and research how to change this before I film again.    

Filming Diary

Day 1 / Sat 6th Dec- Today I filmed the kitchen, underpass and bedroom scenes. The filming went well and I stayed on schedule. At 6:00 we started on the bedroom scene. We did encounter some lighting issues but we quickly found an alternative light source. I also had issues with the camera. When I first put my SD card in the camera, it would not recognize it, and therefore I could not record onto it. I had to Google the issue and found out that I had to go into the settings to initialize the card. After I did this it recorded fine. We finished the bedroom scene at around 6:30, then we went to film the kitchen scene. This also posed some issues as the small space struggled to accommodate the tripod, and we had to squeeze it into the space we needed. This scene finished filming at about 7:00, then we went on to film at the underpass. This scene took a bit longer as we had to change costumes and do a lot more moving around. The scene went well and we didn't encounter any major problems.

Day 2 / Wed 10th Dec - Today I filmed the classroom scene. The filming went well as the classroom I wanted was available and the light on the day was good for filming in. I did run in to a few problems such as when I was filming the birds eye shot. I had to stand on the table in order to get the character in the frame but the way I was standing meant that each way I tried to frame the shot my feet could always be seen in the corner. I decided that I still needed this shot so I shot it with my feet in the frame and I will edit it in post production.

Day 3 / Fri 12th Dec -  Today I filmed the newsreader scene at college. I quickly wrote out the script and found a space with a plain wall where I could film it. The filming was a success, however we did have some difficulty as the actress needed to read the script, so I had to write it out in bold and place it just above the camera to try and make it look like she is looking at the camera rather than the script.

Day 4 / Mon 16th Feb - Today I filmed the second part of my trailer which shows fast clips of the protagonist running through a forested area and trying to escape the antagonist. We used 2 locations for this. Firstly we used the wooded area which was part of a local park. We went there first and filmed the protagonist running through the trees. This didn't take long and we got the shots we wanted, however on a couple of takes we had to stop as members of the public walked past and came into the shot. When we were finished here we went back to my house where we shot a few scenes of the protagonist falling over and scooting backwards across the grass trying to escape. I then got a shot of her slamming the gate shot as she is trying to escape, however the gate is broken and wouldn't shut properly, but I thought that it looked okay as it was so I decided not to re-film this part. We then got the shots of the protagonists with the gun. The gin belonged to my dad and we could only use it in my back garden which is why we were filming there rather than in the park. This also went well and I have now finished my initial filming, just some re-shoots of some scenes to go.

Day 5 / Tues 24th Feb - Today I re-filmed the classroom scene in the library. This was due to my audience feedback as they said that the classroom did not look very professional, and so I re-filmed in the library making it more realistic. The filming was quick as I only needed to get a few clips and it went as planned. I had asked the librarians for permission to film a few days earlier and we agreed to film at 9:00am so we just went in and filmed what we needed.

Day 6 / Mon 23rd March - Today I re-filmed the newsreader scene on green screen. It went well as I had all of my props and costume ready. I set up the desk and had my actress sit down, and then I adjusted the lighting. We took a couple of takes but it soon became apparent that the acoustics of the room meant that her voice echoed. We tried to tackle it by moving the mic closer but it didn't work so i'll have to try and fix this post-production. The filming seemed to go well and we got some good takes, but when I put the video on the computer to be edited it showed that the camera had been set to SD instead of HD, and so I will have to try and tackle it post production or film it again at a later date as this makes it harder to remove the background.

Location 5 - Newsreader

This location was used for the newsreader scene. I used a staircase as it has a neutral white background which makes it easy to manipulate and change if I want to. This neutral colour also helps the audience to identify the setting as a news studio as it looks like a professional setting. There was plenty of space in the room to move around and try different camera angles and different framing. I decided to use a mid shot for my final shot as this is the shot typically used in news reports. However, as it was a large space I did have to be careful with the dialogue as if the actress spoke too loudly there was a noticeable echo which would not sound good in the trailer.    

Location 4 - Classroom

 This location was chosen for the part of the trailer where the characters research about the murder and the creature who may be behind it. The computer was used to show the location of the crime scene on a map to make it more realistic for the audience to see a location. I could also use the computer for the scene where the character is uploading images onto the computer.

 During the filming for this scene I had a couple of issues as the windows provided a lot of natural light, which was good as it meant that I didn't have to use any extra lights, however it did mean that on my first few shots my characters were in silhouette. To fix this problem I shut the blinds which were directly behind the character so they could be seen clearly, leaving some blinds out of the shot open to provide some light for the scene.

 The tables were used for my research shots where the character could be seen reading a book. I thought that this would be a good location as the room looked empty, showing the characters isolation. I put my character in the centre of the tables so that the audience's attention was directed straight to her.

The last part of this location was the book shelves. This shot was only short but it showed the character collecting her research. I used this shelf instead of ones in the library as I felt that the library would be too crowded to film in and the room would be too big. I wanted a smaller space to make my audience feel enclosed.

Location 3 - Underpass

 This location of an underpass was used for the scene where the main character encounters the supernatural being. The location gives off an ambient feel as it is quite a confined space, with dark corners to make the audience feel unsafe. This location has a lot of lights, making it easier to film as I didn't need to take any extra lighting equipment with me. The location gave off enough light so that the character could be seen, but also not too much light that it looks strange for a horror trailer.

 I think that this location gives off the right contrast between low key lighting which is essential to the genre, but also enough light so that the images are clear. I chose an underpass for the meeting scene as it is quite eerie and gives off a claustrophobic vibe. It also has a long pathway meaning that the character was able to see the creature from a distance, making the audience feel uneasy as it is not clearly shown what the creature is. The dark colours of the scene also help to create the desired atmosphere as the grey of the concrete and the dark of the end of the underpass are typical colours of a horror setting.

Location 1 - Bedroom

I chose this location for the sequence where the main character is describing her dreams. I thought that I would show her having the nightmare using this fairly ordinary setting, to show that the character comes from an ordinary background. This is also the setting of when the main character is having the nightmare. The room had plenty of space for me to get a good shot of the character, so that it was apparent to the audience where she is.

Location 2 - Kitchen

This location was used at the beginning of the trailer where the main character is looking out of the window, and also when the main character is watching the news report. I chose a kitchen as a setting as it shows the character going about a normal routine in a typical daily setting, showing the equilibrium. I thought this would be a fitting place for the equilibrium to be disrupted with the news report, showing that the character's normal world has been changed.

Prop List

Here is the prop list for my film trailer. This will help me to make sure that on each date I will have the appropriate props and I will not forget any whilst filming.

News Scene
Table
Papers

Library Scene
Book
Table
Chair
Computer

Underpass Scene
Camera phone

Chase Scene
Gun

From my storyboard I can see that I don't need many props, but it it still important to plan out what I need on what day so that I don't forget anything important.

Health & Safety Grid

Organizing Dates for Filming

When I was planning dates to shoot my film trailer I had to consider different things such as when I was available to film, when all of my cast members were available to film and when the location would be available for use.

I started out by choosing some initial dates that I could use, and got in contact with my cast members to see if they were available. I have put pictures of the conversations below:

I then took these dates and checked them with local weather reports. I saw what the weather was going to be like throughout the day and picked certain times so that I would not be caught in the rain. This would have made filming outside a difficulty and also filming at the underpass more difficult as you would be able to hear the rain in the background.

Finally I chose specific times depending on weather and time and put together a plan of which scenes to film when according to availability of location and time of day, as some scenes needed to be shot at night.

Filming Schedule

Distribution of my Film Trailer

Successful Horror Trailer - Paranormal Activity

Here I will be showing some trailers from horror films that were very successful at the box office.

Paranormal Activity was a highly successful film and it's trailer was quite unique. This trailer uses common conventions by using shots from throughout the film to summarize the narrative and show some of the most tense moments. However, this trailer also uses unconventional techniques such as showing the audience's reaction to the film alongside some of the more intense clips of the film. They used the audience's reaction to create a more creepy atmosphere as we can see how everyday people react to the film, rather than just guessing how good the film will be from clips of the film. This is a great advertising technique as it shows people how others reacted to it, showing how scary the film is,  and convincing more people to go and see it. This trailer was successful as it drew the audience in with the audience reaction and the clips of the film, with the increasing pace and cliffhangers.

In my trailer I will aim to use the pacing techniques seen here in order to maintain the audience's interest and lead up to a suspenseful ending in order to make the film appealing and make people want to go and see it.