Question 1 of media coursework evaluation questions.

1. Question 1:
How did Research
and Planning
inform your
production?

2. Research
Through research we had to undertake findings from various successful
horror films as this was our chosen genre in which we decided to create. I
then proceeded onto analyzing the films to see why the films where so
successful. In order to get an accurate measurement of information on
why horror films are deemed with the amount of success they uphold, I
needed to analyze horror films from different time eras. For example, I
analyzed ‘IT’ from 1990 to films such as ‘The Conjuring’ – 2013. After
analyzing these films, it showed that the films where successful due to the
actors, directors, film festivals that have given them the stamp of approval
and the overall, well constructed process of the film. I then went onto
research the trailers of these films to see what content from the film was
in the trailers and at what point as trailers don’t use a chronological order
when in the construction process however, the order of events from the
trailer also needs to be understandable.

3. Planning
When planning how we were going to make a trailer we thought that it
would be best to shoot footage as if we were going to create a miniature
film and then choose specific parts that clearly expressed the linear
structure of the film. We also needed to create storyboards for the
miniature film so we knew what bits to shoot for each seen which we then
could cut and change during the editing process of making the trailer. We
also needed to create a mood board in order to get imagery for title
sequences, scene lighting etc. because without this we wouldn’t have had
an initial starting idea in which we could expand, develop and change in
the process.

4. Story Boards
The story boards play an extremely important part in the whole
construction aspects of creating the trailer. We needed to have the story
boards with us every time we were going to shoot footage in order for our
schedules to run smoothly. Our storyboards changed throughout the
process for example, we started with the initial idea of having a caretaker
however before our final production, we came to an agreement of adding
a caretaker would make the storyline too complex for the viewers to
follow. We then needed to change the script and storyboards to fit with
our final idea to be made into a trailer.

5. Creativity
Through the use of research, planning and artistic roles that each
individual aligned themselves with, I can positively state that these helped
a massively with our creativity.
From the mood boards we were influenced by the frequent use of low key
lighting that is incorporated throughout horror films and horror trailers.
We also took inspiration from the fonts that were used for the opening
and closing sequences which we tried to mimic with the fonts that were
available to us.
We also used the starting points in order to maximize our creativity. We
discussed as a group which individual’s strengths and weaknesses are in
each topical area needed to gather information to complete the given
ancillary tasks and the editing of the trailer.