A2 Horror Trailer

A2 COURSEWORK BRIEF

We were given thirteen briefs and choices of what we could produce for our A2
coursework pieces. I have chosen:

#A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two
of the following three options:

-A Website homepage for the film.
-A film magazine front cover, featuring the films.
-A poster for the film.

I have chosen this brief because it would be my first time experimenting and using
any type of filming technology or editing programmes. I studied Media at GCSE
and at AS, both of these times I chose to do a print format for my
coursework, because I felt this was my strength. This year I want to push
myself, and learn new things to expand my understanding of Media. I personally
enjoy watching films in my free time, so I think creating a trailer for one will allow
me to understand what type of editing and work goes into making a short trailer for
one.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OR REAL MEDIA PRODUCTIONS?

For my A2 media coursework, I chose to make a horror trailer named ‘The Decease’ with
my partner Lucie. After researching trailers, film posters, magazines and around the film genre in detail, I
found that there were a pattern of conventions which each trailer followed, from the layout, to use of sound
and music.

THE CONVENTIONS: RESEARCH!

In the trailer, I tried to keep consistent to the types of conventions which I had noticed always occurred
, there were three main ones which were consistently used:
•A calm beginning , an ‘equilibrium’ to which everything is okay and mundane. Letting the audience
know that something bad is about to happen: The lighting in these signs tend to be light, airier and bright
to show the ‘normal’ life of the characters.
•Use of sound is used to create tension and a ‘sign’ to the audience that action or horror is getting close.
There were two different types of sound from what I noticed-older trailers tended to have a continuous
‘theme tune’ type use of sound, whereas newer genre’s of trailer tended to have ‘snippets’ of
sound, create more of a montage style trailer.
• There is always a use of dim, dark and often flashing lighting when the trailer eventually shows scary
parts. This convention usually works on every era of film trailer.


USE IN ‘THE DECEASE’
• At the start of The Decease I filmed the two best friends in there ‘normal’ lives, showing
them laughing, hugging and walking, as you would see two teenage friends do normal.
This offers the audience a relatable image, which makes them think ‘everything is okay’
at the start. I made them effect of the film black and white, because I feel that this makes
the audience immediately aware that this is nostalgic, and looking back onto the
past, before any scary action is introduced.
• For the sound effects, I used newer, more recent trailers as inspiration, particularly the
‘Paranormal Activity’ sequel. The sound in our trailer was chopped parts of scary
sounds, offering a montage of film and sounds to create a ‘real life’ feel to it. These
included loud bangs, screams and muffled talking. By using these, I feel we made the
trailer feel more personal, and as if it had been filmed by the character themselves, a
convention which I thought was very effective.
• We also filmed lots and lots of small sections of film of the two characters doing
‘everyday’ activates, to screaming and climbing upstairs, by doing this, it created a jam-
packed and busy trailer.


CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS!
• To set apart ‘The Decease’ from any other film trailer, I decided to create a very
minimalistic trailer, in the sense that I don’t give much away in terms of the plot
line, the feelings of the characters or the setting. Instead I used the short clips of
film to create tension, and excitement for the audience without using a voiceover
describing what is happening. By doing this, I feel that the audience would have
become more excited to see the film, as it remains a ‘mystery’. This also carried
through to my ancillary tasks.
• The only type of clue which me and my partner gave was the text which we added
in between every few takes of film, because I feel that by doing this, we gave the
audience just enough information to become interested in the trailer.
• These methods were very different to a lot of the trailers which I had
researched, as they tended to give the audience and overview of what
happens, then leave it on a ‘cliff-hanger’ I think as the audience, and using my own
experience, this makes the film guessable and predictable, as horror films have a
tendency to become cheesy if the same conventions are continuous recycled.


WAS OUR MEDIA PRODUCTION AN EFFECTIVE PIECE?
• I think that ‘The Decease’ worked out well in the end. As a whole piece, I think me and
my partner embodied what a film trailer should be like due to using lots of the
conventions which were continuously used in the trailers which we researched.
• When it has all come together, I feel that the use of it’s editing (using ghosting
effects, and black and white) made it work well, as it conveyed the genre of horror much
more than it would have before hand.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?
This is my ancillary task number one; a film poster.

The ancillary task of the film poster helps reinforce the effectiveness
of my main task because all of the design elements tie in together.
•After researching film posters extensively, I found that in newer film
posters there is almost always a central image which draws the
audience’s eye to it. For mine, this was a picture of the main
character holding her hand over her mouth. I had to edit the photo
majorly using Photoshop, I blacked out her eyes, to make it ‘less
human’ and I made the image darker, more contrasted and faded it
into a grey background. I think that my main film poster has been
effective because it has just enough detail to keep the reader
interested
•The tagline and main title is also something which I feel has been
effective. I used a scary looking font from website ‘Da Font.com’ and
made it black and white, creating a simultaneous effect along with
the tagline, tying it all into one layout and colour theme. This also
keeps in with the fact the friendship between the two girls at the start
of the trailer is in black and white, and makes the audience feel as if
they are looking back into the past.

•For my film magazine ancillary task, I researched into film
magazines which are being published at the moment, such as
Q, Empire magazine and FILM magazine. I found that there were
a range of conventions which were used simultaneously
throughout each of them.
•I think my magazine has been successful because I have
embodied these conventions, for example, I used a three-colour
theme of black, white and red. The red has connotations of danger
and particularly catches the eye of the audience, the use of black
means creates a slick, professional look and I think it particularly
adds to the professionalism of the magazine. By using just three
colours, I think it makes it look more believable and less amateur.
•I added a central image, similar to my film poster , by doing this I
think it follows the convention of a film magazine because all the
ones which I had researched had something in the middle which
was the audiences first priority to look. I also used similar use of
conventions, such as the barcode, tagline, date and banner at the
bottom of the magazine itself.
•For my inspiration for my magazine, I used ‘Q’ magazine which
is the kind of magazine I think fits with my trailer .


To create the ancillary tasks, and edit the photos which I took
professionally, I used Adobe Photoshop.

These are a few of the photos from the photo-shoot
which haven’t been edited using and software.

(Using film poster image as example)
• To create the ‘horror’ look of the film poster, I first had to make
the background completely black, as the one which I had shot
on was white. To do this, I used the ‘lasso’ tool, which cuts out
the image from its background very precisely, making the
central image be completely free. Once this was done, I
opened another window and placed the image of Milly onto a
black background.
• I then began editing the actual image of her. I clicked ‘image’
then adjustments and used the brightening, contrast, levels
and curve tools to create a darker, more ‘embedded’ looking
image.
• To finish the editing, I coloured in her eyes in black using the
Pencil tool, I also did the same to her nails, as on the day of
the photo-shoot they were bright pink! Which didn’t look very
scary.
• Finally I used websites ‘Da Font. com’ to get the kind of texts
which would suit the poster and genre. I chose a newspaper
looking one as this was most intimidating and fit with our plot
lin. I then used my research and created the text which went
underneath and came up with a scary tagline ‘Don’t turn
around’.


WORKING TOGETHER AS A MARKETING
STRATEGY:
• I believe that my three texts
(poster, magazine and trailer) will work
together as a promotion package
because they all follow a similar
theme, layout and idea.
• The style that I wanted to create was
minimal, and didn’t let too much out to
the audience. I think this has worked
well, for example, in my trailer I have
used short, snappy pieces of film which
then all came together to create more of
a ‘montage’ style trailer. By doing this, I
feel that I haven’t given too much away
to the audience and will make them
excited to see the film.
• I also carried over this minimal style to
my film poster and magazine, the theme
which I made simultaneous throughout
makes it work as a promotional package
because it all works together as one.

HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

USE IN RESEARCH:
• For the initial research which was vital before I started any
production on my trailer, I used website www.YouTube.com as a way
to look at lots of different types of trailers. From Rom-Com styles, to
action, this eventually helped me and my partner decide that we
wanted to do a horror trailer because the conventions and genre
style was very clear to the audience.
• This site made it possible for me to watch trailers from the 80’s all
the way to film releases of this year, and enabled me to work out
what has changed and developed over time.
• It also gave me inspiration on my own style of trailer, and I took that
from 2010 trailer ‘Paranormal Activity’
• As well as helping me with my research, it was the site which I
uploaded my trailer onto, and enabled me to then upload it onto
blogger.


THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE:
BLOGGER! • Blogger was probably the most useful tool throughout
the whole process of my A2 media coursework. It
enabled me to put all of my work in one place and
keep it updated, organised and together. As well as
uploading blog posts, I also added video’s, scanned
word documents and images. It enabled me to create
a personal space to put all of my work into one
space, updating it regularly.
• As well as keeping all my work in one space, you
can also personalise your blog with images, new
backgrounds and font and title changes.
• My blog address is www.hayleyfreake.blogspot.com


USE IN CONSTRUCTION:
Dafont.com!
• For all three of my tasks, this website was a first stop. It offers a
place to copy & paste professional looking fonts and texts for
lots of different productions.
• For my magazine, I wanted to create a realistic and believable
front cover. So this website helped me find fonts which are
similar to those of my inspiration ‘Q’ magazine.
• I used the ‘gothic’ and ‘horror’ categories to find the perfect
styles to fit with my genre.


I used Adobe Premiere Pro to produce my media trailer, as it
enabled me to
upload, edit and then produce the finish trailer.
• Once we had done all of the filming which we needed, we
uploaded all of the film and this was named ‘Sequence 1’. As we
had lots of different clips of text and in between these clips there
was a lot of candid material, we had to use the Razor Tool to cut
each clip and section to the length and size that we wanted.
• Once I had cut the clips, I was left with smaller, individual clips to
work with, and I had to move them into place to make sure the
trailer made sense. By doing this, I had to make sure that the
plotline and sequence of my trailer worked with the storyboards
and plans which me and my partner originally made.
• Once the initial sequence was set out, I set about editing the clips.
I wanted to use all of the conventions which I had recently
researched, and create a believable trailer.


Adding Dip-to-black transitions!
All of the researched trailers had very simultaneous, and un noticeable
such as dip-to-black or occasionally fade-to-white. There were a few
simple steps to putting these on to my own trailer.
• I clicked on video transitions, and after looking through and testing a
few, I thought that fade to black look the most seamless as most of
our clips were dark after editing.
• I selected dip to black and then dragged it over to the appropriate
clips to create the look that I wanted. As well as adding in these
transitions, you can drag them out, making them either longer or
shorter and increasing the length of your trailer.

Adding sound!

By adding sound to my trailer, I feel it tied in the whole
horror theme and created a much more believable plot and
characterisation.
• I pressed ‘file’ then clicked import. Prior to this, I had
converted clips from ready-made YouTube trailers and
had the sound available to me.
• It then came up in the dash as a ready to use sound
file, and I dragged it onto my trailer and placed it
underneath whichever section I wanted to use it on.
• Lastly, as our trailer is lots of small clips, so this meant
that I had to use the razor tool to cut lots of them up
into smaller sections so it fit with our filming.
• Once the sound was added, I made sure I added ‘audio
transitions’ to make the use of sound seem very
natural, for example, where there was a change in
sound I made sure it ‘dipped’.

Adding Text!
Text is one of the most essential conventions which horror trailers use. It gives out little, yet key
information about the up coming film and can also add very memorable pieces of text which the
audience remember in years to come. I found this was the impact which The Strangers trailer had on
me, so I decided to use it in my own trailer!

• To start with I click ‘new title’ and then default still to actually
create the text box which will eventually go onto my trailer.
• Once the text was input, the editing and changing of the text
could start. I chose a very creepy looking text and then edited to
make it bold and black, creating a statement for my trailer!
• Once the editing was done, it clicked the ‘x’ button, as that
automatically saves the text and puts it in the dash!
• It saves as ‘title 01, 02..etc’ and then I just dragged it into place
and the text was on my trailer.
• To make the text look as if it belonged with the trailer, I used
other transitions, such as dissolve etc. to make it look
seamless.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

‘’I really liked your trailer, you used lots of different editing techniques such
as dipping in and out sound and ghosting the clips! I think that it has
been effective overall. If you could change anything, I think you could of
added your own sounds!’’
• I agreed with the comments made about our trailer, I think that the
overall narrative style has succeeded in creating a balance and I was
happy with the overall product. I also agreed with the constructive
criticism which was also given, I think that if we had time, me and my
partner would have used microphones to create our own sounds to
accompany our video.
• Overall I’m happy with the comments we received for our trailer, and
I think that everyone reacted positively to our final piece.

A2 Horror Trailer

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