Critical Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Lyndsay and I did a lot of background research on teaser trailers, not just horror trailers but a different variety. We also did research on the conventions of horror itself as horror was the main genre for our trailer; these included for example weapons, villains, victim, shadows, murder/death, blood darkness, eerie music, weak/strong characters, haunted house, isolated settings, monsters, evil, storms, chase sequence, gore, violence, screams, ghosts, and suspense. These are what a typical horror film would have throughout so we used similar conventions, with an isolated setting, hero, villain and victim. We portrayed these by using a chase sequence, showing suspense to the audience which created an empty and isolated setting.
Looking back at our research for a teaser trailer we found out that in order for our trailer to use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products we had to make sure it was under 2 minutes and that it should intrigue the audience by using lots of clips and not giving anything away, we incorporated this in our trailer by concealing the identity of our characters by hiding their faces. We hid the villains face to create a sense of threat that the villain is present, but still the audience is in suspense to find out who the villain really is. To show the difference between each character we used the forms of colour to represent who each character was, for the villain he was kept in quite dark colours so mainly black, as black is often used in films to portray the villain, we then used white for the ghost/spirit character as this represents innocence in our storyline. As for the main character we used the colour red as this colour represents importance and also shows danger and the hidden threat that the character is in.
Back with our research on horror films and teaser trailers we noticed that in a lot of them they usually used a male as the hero, but we decided that we wanted a female as out hero, but as we created our plot, in the end the victims brother becomes the hero by saving her, so the characters end up switching places.
I think that as a group Lyndsay and I did keep very close the conventions of horror that a teaser trailer is supposed to have. From the feedback we got for the two viewings we showed, both times the audience was not sure of the storyline which is what we wanted to achieve the main purpose of a teaser trailer to tease the audience into wanting to watch the whole film to find out what happens, a nice air of suspense to the film.

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

A teaser trailer or teaser is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming movie, game or television series. Teasers, unlike typical theatrical trailers, are usually very short in length and usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film. They are usually released long in advance of the film they advertise, one of the reasons for the name "teaser" is because they are shown usually a long time (one or one and a half years) before the movie comes out, so as to "tease" the audience.
Teasers are also commonly used in advertising. The so-called teaser ad/campaign consists typically in (a series of) small, cryptic, challenging, advertisements which anticipate a larger full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. Their purpose is less to tell the audience about a movie's content than simply to let them know that the movie is coming up in the near future, and to add to the hype of the upcoming release. Teaser trailers are often made while the film is still in production or being edited and as a result they may feature scenes or alternate versions of scenes that are not in the finished film. Teaser trailers today are increasingly focused on internet downloading and the convention circuit.
We have created posters and also a magazine alongside our teaser trailer which will ensure ticket sales and profit. I think that the text with our trailer works very effectively, and I think that if this was a real film our media texts would be seen a lot by consumers.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Lyndsay and I decided that we wanted our target audience to be in the age range of 15-19 years old. We created a questionnaire to help us find out what our chosen target audience liked and disliked about horror movies. This helped us get a clear understanding of what the audience wanted and to help us come up with ideas to give our audience what they wanted. After making rough drafts of our trailer and posters we created yet another set of questionnaires to help us find out if what we created as a group from our first questionnaire we managed to achieve knowing what the audience wanted. The audience is the main and essential part of making a film, they are the consumer of the product, without the audience they would be no film and no profit, so the audience is vital to the production of the film itself and also in the film industry.
I think that by having a specific target audience to aim your film to it feels like having a specific goal to achieve by the end of everyday. I also think that with the help from the feedback that we got from our target audience we were able to fulfill what our audience wanted and produce a really intriguing teaser trailer that entices our audience to want to see our full film.

How did you use new technologies in the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages?

In the research and planning we created a blog instead of keeping sheets of paper and writing endless notes that would probably get lost, so the use of the blog was so much easier knowing that I could always access my work from both the school and at home and that all I had to do was type up my information and then post the blog, I did have some trouble trying to organise by blog so that all the research came first, then planning, then construction as the blog is laid out so that you have to start from the bottom of the page and work your way to the top which had me really confused and I had to create quite a few new blogs as I wasn't happy with the order. Although the blog was tricky at first I did eventually get the hang of it I was really enjoying using it as I found out lots of new things, for example Lyndsay found out how we could link each others blogs together, so when ever Lyndsay did something and I mentioned her name I was able to link it to the exact post on her own blog, this became very efficient throughout the stages of my blog and helped us to see what each other was doing and if we needed to refer to each others posts.
In the construction of our trailer I got familiar with the video camera which I had not used before and was worried that it was going to be complex to use but was very surprised that it was really simple to use and that I didn't even need to use the instructions which was very handy as they were in a different language. The video camera was really easy to handle and use, I was really getting the hang of it after shooting some rough footage.
Although I didn't do the editing I did end up using the programme Adobe Premiere, (which Lyndsay used to edit our footage) as part of my research on horror, I created a presentation on the history of horror and when I saw Lyndsay also use Adobe Premiere for her presentation I also used it to help with my skills as it was a programme I had never used before and at first I found it really difficult but then after watching Lyndsay get the hang of using the programme I then found it a lot more easier.
I also used Adobe Elements 3.0 as I got really creative after Lyndsay had designed the posters to go with our teaser trailer, I edited the posters onto bus stops and also on the side of the bus to see what our poster would look like if our film was to be made. I have already used Adobe Elements 3.0 as I also study photography and I have become very familiar and my skills have developed a lot as I have been able to use it in more than one subject.
In conclusion I have learnt how to create and use a blog and also Adobe Premier which has been beneficial for my research and planning, construction and evaluation stages as I have developed new skills and also an understanding of how to keep my coursework electronically rather than hand written, and also I have learnt how to present my work more efficiently, I did originally use normal Microsoft Power Point to create my presentation of the history of horror, but then I adapted it by using Adobe Premiere as I was able to use my new found knowledge to make my presentation more advanced and I then was able to upload by presentation onto my blog which was another skill I was able to use.

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After Lyndsay created the poster for our film i decided to get a bit creative and edit them into Adobe.

This is the first advert i created, i took all the images and the font that Lyndsay used to create our posters and then edited it onto the side of a bus. It was fun to make and i think that by adding the poster to the side of the bus we can now see what it would look like if our film was to be made and produced.

This is the second advert that i created, i editied the first of our two posters onto a bus stop shelter. I like the conposition, i think that the poster works really well and having the poster next to an existing one it makes our poster seem real.

This is our final advert with our second poster that Lyndsay created, i think our poster works really well, it looks really effective and really stands out so people waiting at the bus stop or driving past will be able to notice our poster.

Teaser Trailer - Final Cut

This is our last and final video of our teaser trailer, taking all our feedback into account Lyndsay worked really hard on editing our trailer. To look at the feedback and the results click on and of Lyndsay's names and it will take you straight to her blog. 

Feedback

Lyndsay created another questionnaire for the trailer and the poster, whaich we handed out to see what people thought of our final trailer and final poster after we had made the alterations from the previous viewing and questionniare.
To see the feedback and the results click onto Lyndsay's name below:
Lyndsay 

Teaser Trailer Final

This is our final teaser trailer, after we got the feedback from our fist teaser trailer Lyndsay made sone alterations and added stuff and cut things out from the response we got from the questionnaire.
This is the finished piece ENJOY :)

Construction 3 - Magazine

The feedback for our film magazine front cover and the final copy, click link below:
Feedback Magazine

Construction 1 and 2 - Teaser Trailer and Poster

Our teaser trailer:
 
Lyndsay wrote out a questionnaire and asked 12 people what they thought of our trailer.
Click on the link below to find out the results from our questionnaire feedback:
Feedback - Teaser Trailer
(The link also has the poster feedback included)

Option 2 - Our Magazine

Lyndsay, the creative one of our group, wanted to do our film magazine.
If you click on the link below it will take you straight to her blog, tells you all about our film magazine and how she did it , the first attempt, and then the final.
Our Film Magazine
The two fron covers, the first attempt and then the final:

Option 2 - Magazine

I did some research on what kind of film magazines are on the market today and i was lucky and came across the magazine Empire.

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media.

Bauer i have looked at before last year and is really surprised that they publish this magazine as we went on the Bauer website and it had no reignition of Empire on its site at all. 

I love the fron covers of the magazine, i got some examples to look at and they are really powerful, all three covers base there design around the theme of the upcoming new movie, for example with Iron Man 2 the name Empire, has electric bolts coming off of it like Iron Man, and the second magazine cover, the title is written in red to signify blood as Robert Pattinson is Edward Cullen who is a vampire, and then finally you have Hellboy 2, he is supposed to be from Hell, and everyones interpretations of hell always seems to come down to lava and fire and i really like how they interpreted that with the title of the magazine, the text is on fire. The use of colour and text is really powerful and really eye-catching. Lynsay also wanted to create our film poster so she has also done a lot of research on film magazines.

Option 1 - Our Poster

Lyndsay said that she wanted to create our poster for our horror movie.
This is her first and second attempt at our film poster. We stopped at the second poster so we can get feedback incase we needed to change or add anything.

   

Option 1 - Poster

As a group we decided that we wanted to create a poster to go with our teaser trailer.
The first thing i did was research other film posters to get some ideas, on layout, colour and text.
I decided that the posters i wanted to look at where from the three horror movies we watched in lesson as a class.
The first film poster that i researched was Gothika:

This is the first poster of the three films and already i notice straight away that the poster has the main star as the main central image. I really like the effect the rain has on the actress and also the surrounding background, the use of lighting works really well against the black background. I notice that the name of the main actress is spread across the top of the poster with the film caption reading 'Because someone is dead, doesn't mean they're gone.' underneath the arm of the actress, which also has sliced into her arm the saying 'Not Alone',i really like the way this is presented, looking at the poster it really makes me want to know how she managed to carve writing in her arm and also what it means by 'Because someone is dead, doesn't mean they're gone.' the vibe i get from this poster is eerie and creepy. The name of the film has been written almost like the wording on the actresses arm, but written in bright neon light creating this reflective affect agains the rain and the wet skin of the actress. Underneath you also have the other famous actors that star in the film, written in plain font and quite small you don't really see it until close up, along with the people who directed, produced and edited etc. And then finally you have the date of the release big enough to read at the very bottom. I really like this poster, its really effective in its appeal and it really draws people in, they have kept it simple, but yet its really inspiring and eyecatching.

This is the second poster of the three films and immediately there is a simarlarity with both posters. They both have a central images, the main focal point to really draw people in to want to watch the film. What also catches my eye was the blacked out face, making it clear to the audience that its not a happy film but a horror, really creepy and really scary. The text at the top is pretty simple, all in caps with the quote of someone saying 'The most shocking film yet from the director of ring'. As you go down to the bottom of the poster it gets more simplier, you have the titile of the film in the middle, again in a plain font, and also the classification and DVD logo (DVD cover was the only image i could get due to so many site being blocked). I think that the only thing about this poster that really stands out is the central image, without the creepy child, in a dirty abandoned corridor, the poster would be way to plain and simple, the font really lets this poster down compared to the poster of Gothika.


This poster is of the third and final fiml that i watched in class. Again just like the previous two posters it has a main central image, a mad, crazy, physco man with his head through a door looking really creepy. The title of the film is different from Gothika and Dark Water as it is located at the top of the poster instead of the bottom, i really like the way they managed to get another creepy looking face in the first few letters of the title and the red writing against the black background, the font is alot better than the previous font used on the poster Dark Water, the central image and the title of the film really make the poster stand out already. Like with the title they have a black box at the bottom with all the production people, directors, producers, editors, camera people, distributors ect. I think the font is a bit plain but i don't think it really matters as no one sits there and reads who makes what film and who did the editing, that is why people tend to have them on the poster but quite small and located mainly at the bottom. Overall i really like this particular poster, i think the poster does it's job by attracting peoples attention and also making people feel quite disturbed.
I am really glad i have researched other posters, this will really help us when it comes to producting our own poster for our horror movie. As a group we will take things on board of what we have learnt and get ideas from exsisting posters.

Post Production

Again Lyndsay created a table with our post production shedule and post production blog:

The production schedule and The production blog

This is our production schedule that Lyndsay created, we had to change a few dates and times etc due to weather or unable to attend, but we managed to finish filming in the end so we had enough time to edit our footage and create the music magazine and poster, and also update on our blogs.

Props list, settings, cast list

This is our props, setting and cast list:
Settings:
- Scary looking house
- Park, trees
- Back garden/ garden shed
Props:
- Ladder
- Newspaper clippings, family photos
- clothing, casual, normal, nothing fancy, old clothes as they will become dirty
- Torches
Sound:
- Dog barking
- Heavy panic panting
- Crackling
Cast:
- Main Girl: Hannah Hand
- Ghost Girl: Tessa Hambleton
- Villain: Zack Warner

A log and analysis of Horror Movies viewed

The Horror Movies that I watched where:
Gothika,
Dark Water,
and The Shinning.
After watching each film, in class we would dicuss the film, what we thought about it, how it made us feel, and also we dicussed the conventions of horror movies, to help us in the making of our teaser trailer.
The first film we discussed was Gothika:
Halle Berry stars as Dr. Maranda Grey, a doctor working at the state prison for the criminally insane. On her way home during a driving rainstorm, Miranda makes a detour to avoid a big sinkhole in the road. As she is crossing a bridge on a back road, she veers sharply to the right to avoid hitting a young girl standing in the middle of the road. The car goes into a ditch, she goes to see whether the girl is unharmed, and awakens three days later to find herself a patient in the insane asylum. Miranda has been accused of killing her husband with an axe, but she has no memory of the murder. Rober Downey Jr., who also plays a doctor at the prison, tries to bring Miranda back to reality. However, one of her former patients (Penelope Cruz) tells her that you cannot trust the doctors, because they think you are nuts. Miranda finds this out the hard way when she tells the doctor that a ghost has possessed her, and he doesn't believe her and gives her more drugs. Miranda escapes from the prison to prove that she didn't kill her husband, but she discovers the truth instead.
My Opinion:
Overall i thought that the film was really good, it had a great storyline, creating suspense for the audience. I admit that i did jump at a few scenes, but don't everyone, i thought that the actors and actresses really suited their characters well. I thought that the way the story was unravelled to the audience was well thought out and really captured my attention and i was really hooked. Overall a really good film and i would give it a 7/8 out of 10.
The second film we discussed was Dark Water:
The plot involves a women, Yoshimi Matsubara, who, in the midst of an unpleasant divorce, moves to an eerie, run-down apartment building with her young daughter, Ikuko. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak. Yoshimi discovers that the upstairs apartment, which appears to be the source of the leak, was formerly the home of a young girl named Mitsuko Kawai, who was of the similar age to her daughter. The child had attended the same kindergarten Ikuko now attends. Mitsuko was abandoned by her mother and vanished more than a year ago. She also had owned a red bag which was the same bag that Ikuko found on the apartment roof when first viewing the apartment. Many incidents then happen repetitively, becoming stranger each time, with an unusual ending to the story.
My Opinion:
I think overall it's a good film, buy i think that we should have watched the English version as i would have understood it more, although i did understand the whole story in the end. I thought that watching the film made from another country would mean loads of subtitles, which i was right, but also thought that my mind would concentrate more on he subtitles rather than the film and so i would lose the story and it would make me jump. I was really wrong, although there was the downside of having the subtitles it was actually worse was when i was reading the subtitles i wasn't watching the TV screen so i jumped quite a lot at certain parts of the film.
Overall i think that its a good film, i think that what would have been better was seeing the Version but then i would only prefer the English version to the Japanese, so overall good film and i would give the film a 5/6 out of 10.
Finally the third film we discussed was The Shinning:
Former teacher and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance interviews for a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel in an effort to rebuild his life after his volatile temper lost him a teaching position. The hotel manager, Mr. Ulman, warns Jack that he and his family will be snowbound through most of the winter and of the potential for cabin fever. He drives the point home by recounting a season when the caretaker, Charles Grady, went crazy and brutally killed his wife, his two girls (aged eight and ten), and finally himself. Given his own desperation and the opportunity to pursue his true passion, writing, jack acknowledges the warning, but accepts the job, then things start to go a bit crazy.
My Opinion:
I think that this particular film was really well produced, the storyline was excellent, it really kept me on the edge, made me jump and scream a few times, it created a lot of suspense, throughout the film. Didn't that it was going to be really scary compared to Gothika as it was filmed in the late 1970/80s.
Overall brilliant film, was really well produced, the actors and actresses really played their characters really well which added to the suspense and what really creeped me out. I think that i would rate this film 8/9 out of 10.

Storyboard for own teaser trailer

Our storyboard was created by Lyndsay. She drew every shot in out trailers sequence and then took a photo of the storyboard and created an animatic of our storyboard aswell.

These images are of our story board created by our member Lyndsay. As a group we are proud and lucky to have someone in our group who is both talented and creative, and our story board looks really professional.

Film trailers viewed, teaser trailers viewed

As a group we chose to do a horror teaser trailer as it was more interesting than creating a 5 minute short film or a music video. With a horror teaser trailer you can do so much with it as long as its within the time limit you can have a lot of fun creating something outrageous. To help with our research we were shown some teaser trailers in class and i also researched some on the internet. We looked at a range of genres of teaser trailers to help get an idea of what to expect, what to look for and how to present out teaser trailer when it comes to getting feedback.
The first teaser trailer we looked at was in class; The Incredibles.

The teaser trailer is a cartoon trailer, of a super hero, see all his magazine and newspaper clippings and posters about him, you immediately think he is the ultimate superhero and that he is on a mission to save the world, after he answers the phone, but then he struggles to get a belt, on suggesting that he is getting old for the superhero stuff and that he should retire, or that the world would be a better place without a superhero. Overall a really good teaser trailer starts off really serious, then turns comical, wanting people to go and see the rest of the film, wanting to see if he saves the world.
The next teaser trailer we watched was The Panic Room:

This particular trailer is of the genre horror/thriller, the horror of being trapped and confined into a small inclosed space that was designed to protect you. I love the idea of the narrated description of the Panic Room itself, the woman's voice is creepy and weird sending a chilldown your spine, making people feel uncomfortablem, even though the Panic Room was designed to keep you safe and keep other people out. I really liked the fact that after the narration you have really quick sharp clips from the film, but its all in complete silence, creating an uncomfortable position for the audience, at the end you have Kristen Stewart say the words 'What is he doing?' and Jodie Foster 'They're locking us in!'. These only wors said by the main characters makes the trailer really creepy, and when i first watched it i was really eiger to watch the whole film.
The next teaser trailer i researched via youtube called The Crazies:

This is a much shorter trailer that i found, only lasts for about 41 seconds, and it was quick and fast like The Panic Room whic as a group we liked the idea of, having loads of clips putting them together to make people want to come and watch out trailer. It has all the conventions of what a Horror Movie should have, and it looks really interesting and exciting to watch, the difference between this particular film trailer and The Panic Room trailer is that The Panic Room has clips the same as The Crazies, but each quick clip is in black and white and quite dark, however in The Crazies it has lots of colour, from the explosions of fire to the peoples clothes and the blood. Both very interesting trailers, which has helped us with lots of ideas on how we want to create out trailer on.
The next trailer i found was Twilight Saga: Eclipse, my all time favourite film collection:
Unfortunately i couldn't retrieve the HTML, but instead i got the link from youtube which will take you directly to the video itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2HIda5wSVU
I love Twilight, New Moon, and i was really excited and amazed with the thrid films trailer. The suspence it created, if you have read the books you can understand how excited people are for this film, i was happy that i managed to find such a brilliant quality video. Because i have seen the pevious two films, i get so excited and i cna't hold my excitment in everytime i watch the trailer for Eclispe, i could watch it over and over aigain and never get bored.
I've noticed that majority of the trailers i have researched, they have used just small clips creating this trailer and the use of spped to only see climpses of the film to get peoples attention and for people to want to go and see it to want to find out more.

The film trailer, the teaser trailer

Film trailers are between 2-3 minutes long. They have about 100 cuts in them. They designed to make the audience feel both:
The pleasure of text - the audience recognises familiar conventions and narratives.
Suspense in the audience - by the use of enigma codes. Who is the killer? What happens in the end?

The film trailer itself tends to be structured in the following way: this structure is not 'set in tone' and can be moved around to have greater effect.
1. The distribution company logo
2. The production company logo
3. The narrative establisher - a series of larger sequences which establish the fundamental storyline of the film.
4. The stars of the USP (Uniquw Selling Point) - often stars or directors. Horror movies traditionally don't always use well- known stars because the audience feel more uncomfortable with actors they don't recognise and don't make them feel secure. In the trailer for the horror movie Scream, the director Wes Craven is the USP because he is famous for directing the cult horror film Nightmare on Elm Street.
5. A series of quick, exciting, suspenseful sequences from the film - this is the convincer in that it should create enough suspence to ensure that the audience decide to go and watch the film.
6. Although the trailer will appear the conventions of the genre.

The film pitch

This is a short film based pitch which i created using Microsoft Powerpoint, then using Adobe Premier Elements. I used our synopsis to help with our pitch, which i then uploaded onto youtube to be transferred onto my blog. I think the use of the pitch will explain our trailer a lot better.
If the video does not work for some unknown reason here is the link from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SubiUyscA_A

Classification choice for new film

We chose to have our film certified as 15 because after we read the guildlines, we decided that the plot isn't scary enough, and because the sexualised storyline of rape and abuse is only implied and not shown.
There will be no nudity and the violence is not a big part of the story line. There is also tame language; no drugs or discrimination, there is not any glamorisation of weapons and the behaviour of the film is not that which would be copied or encouraged.
The information which we researched to help us get the correct rating for out film was from the link below:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/downloads/pub/Guidelines/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202009.pdf

Synopsis for new idea for a Horror Movie

A young girl of about 16 and her brother are moving into a new house with their mum and her new husband. The hous is big and old fashioned, and is on the outskirts of town. As they are moving the boxes in, the older brother is winding up his sister, telling her that the house is haunted. She brushes him off, telling him that she never has and never will believe in ghosts.
During the night the teenage girl, Cassie, is having trouble sleeping, listening to the 'bumps in the night', suddenly she sits up, her eyes are open and they flash bright red, they then fade to their normal colour and she slumps back into her bed.
The next morning the family dog barks at the girl for no reason. Over breakfast the mother is talking about what they can put into the loft, the stepdad snaps at them, he tells them that nothing can go up into the loft. They all find this a bit strange but brush it off as stress from the move.
Cassie finds a battered box, thinking it is one they must have missed in the move, goes to put it with the others, but a voice in her head, one whaich is not her own tells her to open it and look at what is inside.
She finds an old family photo out in fromt of the house; it is of the stepdad with his previous family. There are also newspaper clippings showing a picture of the previous teenage daughter who went missing a few years before.
When Cassie reads the clippings she has flashbacks of the previous girl's life in the house. She is running away from an unknown villain, all you can see are the hands of the antagonist trying to grab the girl. She trips and falls to the ground where the hands drag her away.
Cassie goes to her room, where she appears to be sitting on her cabin bed talking to herself, you then here the voice from earlier relpy to her and see the previous daughter sitting at the desk under the bed.
Throughout the next few days Cassie talks to the girl, she finds out that they had the same stepdad, and she has more flashbacks.
She has a premonition of herself in the same scenario of running away from the hands, the hands which have been tormenting her dreams.
The stepdad asks her to help him with the shopping and put some things away for him, she goes with him and he is very strict and protective about her when they are out.
After more dreams and premonitions all including the hands and images of the loft, she figures that to get the answers she has to go into the loft, the previous girl from the visions tells her that is the right thing to do, but to wait until everyone has gone out for the day.
Cassie waits for a day where everyone has gone to work and she has been left home alone. She goes to the landing and gets out the ladder for the loft, half way up the ladder she hears someone come in through the door. Scared she comes down the stairs and tries to act normally in front of the step-dad. She asks him if he would like a drink and goes out to the kitchen to get him one, suspiciously he goes up the stairs and finds the ladder up to the loft.
He comes back down the stairs and slams into the kitchen. He asks harshly if she has been up in the loft, she replies trying to act inconspicuous that she has not been up in the loft, and that she wasn’t planning to either.
He shouts her, telling her that she is a liar, all the while he is advancing on her. Cassie backs away from him running through the house, he follows her trying to grab her, she grabs the cordless phone from the side and tries to dial the police as she runs, but her hands fumble too much to ring properly.
The chase pursues all through the house, until Cassie is back in the kitchen, fumbling the phone in one hand and the lock on the back door with the other, she manages to get out into the garden just in time, and runs towards the back fence and tries to get over the back fence. As she is trying to climb, he catches up with her, pulling at her by the ankles back down to the floor, he drags her, screaming back towards the house.
She is still fumbling the phone in her hand trying to ring the police, he rips it from her hands and chucks it across the room, where is smashes on the wall, falling to pieces on the floor. He drags her kicking and screaming up the stairs towards the loft.
He pushes her into the loft and pushes her across the floor, it’s very dark and dusty, and when her eyes adjust to the light she can see the morbid images of a girl, and she can not work out what is happening to the girl in the pictures as they are too distorted.
He explains to Cassie that the previous girl was just like her, and tells her what he did to her and how he is going to do the same to her, and she is going to be very quiet and not say a word to anyone. She begins to scream and he kicks her, and tells her that he just told her to be quiet.
They both hear the door being unlocked downstairs and Cassie scrambles for the hatch, she tries to scream and he covers her mouth.
Down stairs the mum and the brother hear the struggle and wonder what is going on, they both go to the stop of the stairs as they see the loft hatch being shut and the terror in Cassie’s scream. The mother goes up into the loft and the step-dad pushes her to the floor. The brother tells her to go downstairs and phone the police, as he goes up to the loft.
Down stairs the mum finds the phone smashed on the floor, and fumbles with her bag trying to find her mobile phone.
Mean while upstairs the brother managed to get into the loft, Cassie seeing him, but the step-dad doesn’t. The brother mouths to Cassie not to look surprised, and he picks up the loft hatch and smashes it over the Step-dad’s head knocking him to the floor, the mother has phoned the police and helps Cassie down from the loft.
When the step-dad comes back around the police are there and are arresting him, with all the evidence from the loft they explain to the family about his previous family and what happened.
That night Cassie wakes up in the night, again her eyes flash red and fade back to normal, then you see the previous girl wave and leave the room.

Production Company name and logo

As we are working together in a group, we have all come up with the name of our Production Company Name. The name for our company we came up with using the first letter of our names and came up with the name: ALT Productions.
This is our production company logo, this was created by Aaron in our group. We are pleased with thr logo as its simple and easy to understand. This logo will be featured in our teaser trailer.

Textual analysis of the opening sequence to Scream

How far does the opening sequence to Scream embody much of the Horror genre?

Part 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFCStOMqpfk&feature=related
Part 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U66WpOELiBI&feature=related

Scream is a 1996 horror film directed by Wes Craven from a screenplay by Kevin Williamson, and the first of the Scream series. Filmed mostly in Santa Rosa, California, the film tells the story of the fictional town Woodsboro, California being terrorized by a masked killer who enjoys tormenting his victims with phone calls and movie references. The killer's main target is Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a teenage girl whose mother Maureen fell victim to a brutal murder one year earlier. The film takes on a "whodunit" mystery, with many of her friends and townspeople being fellow targets and suspects.
Scream revitalized the slasher film genre in the late 1990s, similar to the impact Halloween (1978) had on late 1970s film, by using a standard concept with a tongue-in-cheek approach that combined straightforward scares with dialogue that satirized slasher film conventions.
The film opens with young Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) recieving phone calls from an unidentified caller. At first it seems as if he has gotten a wrong number, but it soon becomes clear he is toying with her, and his voice gets more and more threatening. Casey becomes frightened when she realizes her caller can see her. She begins to panic when the caller threatens to kill her, and forces her to answer movie trivia in exchange for her life and the life of her boyfriend, Steve, who she sees tied up on her back patio. After killing Steve, the caller torments Casey until finally breaking into the house and chasing her; he is dressed in a black costume with a white ghost mask over his face. He chases her across her lawn just as her parents pull up into the driveway. They do not see her, and Casey is stabbed in the chest, unable to scream. After killing Casey, the murderer strings up her body in the back yard for the parents to discover.
Looking back at my post on conventions of a Horror Movie, the first 5-10 minutes of the opening sequence of Scream is full of the conventions, a typical horror movie in the first 5 minutes. They have created supence with the girl being on her own, a lot of shadows created because if the limited lighting created by just the odd lamp in each room and also the blue light from the TV which is blank. There is murder the death of her boyfriend and then herself, creating the use of blood and also the use of weapons. The darkness together with the eerie music and an isolated house as the setting, is a typical horror movie conventions, the chase sequence through the house and into the garden, the gore, the violence, and the screams all put together in the first opening sequence to Scream creating a really good horror movie creating suspence throughout and making you want to watch the rest of the film to find out the story behind the killer and the murderes motivation.

The Film Industry

Production
A small production company will form and have an idea for a new film. They will then have to get funding for this film. Films often cost many millions of pounds/dollars to make. the production company will go to the distributor for this money.
If the distributor likes the idea; in other words that the film has a winning formula (similar films have been been successful before) of that it is so brilliantly original that it amazes them (this most unlikely to be the case). Also the idea must meet the conventions of the genre to which it belongs. Then the distributor may well lend the money for the production company to make their film.
The distributor can force changes to the idea and demand that certain stars appear in the film.

The production phase itself is split up into three sections:
1. Pre-production: planning, design, storyboarding, casting...
2. Production: the actual shooting of the movie.
3. Post-production: editing the movie together, adding sound and special effects.

Distributor/Distribution
These people have the money. They are often the large studios: Universal, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers. They are often part of a huge media conglomerates: Vivendi Universal, News Corporation and Time Warner. They are wealthy and own much of the worlds media.
Once the film has been produced (made) then the distributors start marketing the film: posters, interviews with stars, merchandise, soundtrack, trailers...
Seeing as the distributor lent most of the money for the film then they scoop up the majority of the films profit.
The distributors are often American, hence this is why the American Film Industry dominates our screens.

Exhibition
The showing of the film. The can be either:
- Cinema
- DVD (rental and sales)
- Video (rental and sales)
- Satellite/Digital TV and Box Office
- Terrestrial TV
- Internet

Conventions of Horror Movies

I have created a list of conventions of what a typical horror movie would have in it from start to finish:
- Weapons
- Villains
- Shadows
- Murder/Death
- Blood
- Darkness
- Eerie Music
- Weaker characters
- Brave characters
- Haunted Houses
- Isolated settings
- Victims
- Monsters
- Evil
- Storms
- Chase sequence
- Gore
- Violence
- Screams
- Ghosts
- Suspense
These are just a few conventions of a typical horror movie, but i am going to watch different horror movies from the older horror types, to today's modern adaptions.

Questionnaire and results analysis

In our group Lyndsay created a questionnaire and gave it to 10 people to answer to help us with research for our own Horror teaser trailer. Lyndsay has uploaded the questionnaire and results onto her blog. I have learnt how to link our groups blogs together, which has helped us a lot as Lyndsay, myself and our other group member Aaron have done different things, so to be able to link each others blogs togther to show what people have done also helps us to show as a group how we have worked together and also to see what each of us have done.

History of Horror

For part of our research for our chosen brief we had to create a presentation on the History of Horror. I started to create my presentation in PowerPoint and i then created a more advanced presentation by using windows movie maker, once i had created it and edited the presentation i uploaded it onto youtube. This is the finished presentation on the History of Horror:
If the video does not seem to work i have also included the link from youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHz_ku3RTI0 (Link to my video)



The Brief
A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with the following three opitions:
- a website homepage fro the film
- a film magazine cover, featuring the film
- a poster for the film