Lucieminty

1. The Descese- Lucie Minty

2. We were given a choice of thirteen briefs to pick from for our coursework, I chose:
A promotional 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 cover, featuring the film
 A poster for the film
I chose this brief because when studying media at GCSE and AS level for my coursework I s
chose the print form briefs on both occasions, by choosing this brief it would be my first
time to have a go at using film editing programs and technology, which would hopefully
increase my skills, knowledge and understanding of the media. In my spare time I love
watching all genres of films, from romance to comedy to horror.

3.  To start off my research I looked at professional media posters and
magazines, I noticed that they all had a consistent house style , by
using appropriate fonts and colours . I then researched horror film
trailers, to see what techniques they used to build up tension and create
atmosphere.
The research really helped me to come up with some initial ideas and
gave me all the information I needed to be able to start my project.

4. I partnered my friend Hayley, this was because we work well as a team, both
having different skills that compliment each other. We decided we were going
to make a horror trailer called “The Descese.” and carried out a lot of
research into horror trailers, teaser trailers, posters and magazines. We
found that there were certain conventions such as standard use of sound
effects, camera angles, editing and layouts which most horror media
products would include and follow.

5. Research for the trailer:
When researching trailers I noticed certain conventions which were used in most trailers,
the most common ones were:
•Sound: The use of sound in trailers is very important, its used to change the mood and
create and build up tension. I noticed that most recent trailers had a montage of edited
scary music, sounds, and voice over.
•Opening of the trailer: Most horror trailers mise en scenes and establishing shots are
very calm and mundane, I think the point is just to set the scene for the audience. The
first couple of clips have normal lighting and not much editing.
• Editing: The usual conventions to editing in scary films is as the trailer progresses the
clips lighting gets dimmer and darker and the cutting of all the clips gets faster and faster,
building up tension.
•Ending: The usual ending would be a build up of clips and sounds which would have the
audience on the edge of there seats to leave them with a loud bang and ‘cliff-hanger’.

6. The Trailer “The Descese”:
Development of conventions...
I wanted to set the scene at the start of the trailer, so filmed two best friends doing
ordinary everyday things such as laughing, and having a good time. I edited the three
clips of them together at a slow pace so could set the scene and make it obvious that
they were friends, I also made these clips into black and white so the audience would
instantly assume and acknowledge it was in the past.
I used sound effects to create substance to the atmosphere , recent films such as
“Strangers” and “Woman in black” were the main influence. I noticed they had a
backing sound track which was over lapped with sound effects and occasional voice
over's and talking from characters. I used a montage of scary sounds , music and sound
effects like door bells, creaking floor boards and screams to create the desired scary
atmosphere that the horror film trailers I researched had.
I tried to ensure the trailer had lots of content by filming a wide range of long acted
scenes and random short shots of the actress in scary and everyday situations. So when
editing I would have a wide range of clips to cut and edit together at a fast pace to give
the trailer a real “busy” feel.

7. The Trailer “The Descese”:
Challenges of conventions ...
To challenge the usual conventions scary horror film trailers have we didn't give much of
the plot away! Instead we made a fast series of random clips which jumped forwards and
backwards from evens which happen in the film, this was intended to give the audience a
feel of the atmosphere of the film with out giving much of the plot away. By doing this it
leaves the audience with enough to want to go and watch the film.
By doing this we found that the film was quite jam packed and didn't really make much
sense so to break it up and add a little information we added in a few clips of texts, this
gave the trailer the right amount of information to make scene but not enough to give
much of the plot away.
By using these unusual techniques we challenged the normal conventions of the typical
horror film trailers, I found these usually follow the same format of giving you big hints
to what the plot is about, and leave you at a important point of the film.

8. Was the final media product an effective piece?
Yes I think our final edit was effective, we tried to make the trailer different from the
majority of horror genre trailers . Although the trailer has some traditional elements
common to lots of trailers we researched, we tried to mix up our edit to challenge the
typical conventions to make it less predictable.
We used different camera edits and effects such as a shaken camera, sharp camera moment
and zoom in to at first keep the audience guessing at the plot, carry them along for a while
and lastly leave them wanting to see more of the full film.
We tried to use a wide range of lighting and camera
angles to create different atmospheres, for example
when we wanted to build tension we used ‘close
ups’, this is so it would show the actresses scared
expressions with out them seeing much of what's
really going on.

9. Camera angles:
Atmospheric view: Low angle: High angle:
The idea of this camera When film we decided to High angle shots are used
angle was to create tension experiment, we wanted to try to make it more dramatic.
through the atmosphere. out the effect of having the We used it in our film to
The looking up view of the camera on the floor. I think make the person look
dark dull trees really adds this shot works really well vulnerable and powerless.
a scary effect.

10. Ancillary tasks:
I think that they are very effective, I have made sure that through out I have kept to a
similar house style, by using same colours and fonts.
To keep our main product and ancillary tasks effective I took pictures for my ancillary
tasks of Milly (the main actor in our trailer) to use as the main images on my magazine
and poster.
All these things help the continuing theme and are easy to connect for the audience.

11. I went out with the main actress of the trailer and took a range of photos, this
gave me plenty of choice to play around with on Photoshop and find the
images I wanted to use for my ancillary tasks.

12. To finish off the poster
I added text. From my
This didn't have the real dramatic research I knew what
After picking the image I scary effect I wanted so tried kind of text horror film
wanted to use for my poster I using some different filters. I posters needed so used
opened it up in Photoshop. found one which gave the picture and changed different
The first thing I did was make more shadow which is what I fronts to give the
it black and white because wanted . Then to emphasise this poster a professional
thought it would give the even more I upped the contrast feel.
scariest effect. and lowered the brightness,
giving it a much more scary feel.

13. I chose this text for the
title of the film because I
wanted something bold
The main image: I chose which had a scary look
this to be the main about it and I think the
image on my poster cracked faded away bits of
because I thought it was the text match the
quite a simple yet intended feel.
effective photo.
I wanted to include the Subheading: I made the
actresses names on the sub heading red because
poster but wanted it to wanted it to stand out
look professional so
didn't want anything
too fancy.
When researching
posters I noticed that British Film Board
they all had this text at classification
the bottom, so to relevant to content
make my poster look and potential
effective I wrote up my audience.
own and put it at the
bottom of my poster.

14. (Crop tool) I then added text
I also changed contrast of the changing the colour
image so brought out more detail and size of
in the image and lowered the important words,
brightness so would take away the this would help to
To keep a similar house style theme highlights. This made the image catch the readers
I wanted to make the image I am and lot darker and spookier . eye. I also placed
using for my magazine black and I then cropped my image slightly my poster onto the
white so looked in the same style as off centred so would fall better on magazine.
my poster image. my magazine.

15. I didn't want my image
to have too much going Heading: I wanted
on, because I didn't want the heading of my
it to take all the magazine to be bold
attention away from the so would stand out.
text, I also didn't want a
really boring irrelevant
image, so found this one
which I thinks works
really well.
I used the offer of a
“limited edition”
poster to get added
value from the
magazine.

16. Me and my partner thought it would be a good way to construct all our ideas and plan
the trailer through a story boards. This meant we could talk through and plan where we
wanted the camera, the angles, what we wanted our actresses to do and where we wanted
to film it.
When it came to filming I found it very helpful that we had the story boards because it
helped us organise everything and were a lot more precise in carrying out the project
plan.

17. Editing:
Once I uploaded my film to adobe flash player, I cut all the different scenes which allowed
me to move them around and delete parts I didn't want. To add a more professional feel I
added the effect of ‘camera blur’ to the beginnings and ends of some clips. This made the clip
fade in and out making smooth transitions between scenes.

18. Editing:
To make some parts of the trailer have a spooky feel I added in different effects to different
parts of the trailer. The main one I used was ‘Ghosting’ this faded out the image and blurred
it slightly giving the clips a ‘ghost’ feel which I think works really well with the idea and
theme of the trailer.

19. Sound:
Sound is a very important part of the trailer, it adds tension and really helps to create
atmosphere.
After importing all my chosen clips of sound that I wanted to use in my trailer I cut parts out
and edited them around so when there was a jumpy scene in the trailer there would be a loud
bang or scream to go with it.
Where I used three or more different sounds and effects I found that in certain places the
transaction from audio clip to audio clip was too sharp and obvious, so by adding the sound
clip effect which fades sound in and out I found my audio played a lot smoother.

20. Text:
Adding text to my media trailer was a lot simpler than I thought, after creating a new
folder on the adobe flash player you had to double click on it where this would appear
where you then have to write your text, pick a font, size and colour and click done.

21. Text:
We also used the ‘camera
blur’ effect on the clips of
texts, this made the clips
fade in and out to keep
continuity of the film, I also
found that it eases tension
off to calm audience after big
build up.

22. “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 have added your own sounds!”
• To develop the trailer I would take all the constructive comments from
my audience feed back and make the changes.
• I agree with this comment my friend made and we had a few feed backs
which are very similar to this.

23. Photoshop:
Photoshop was the main program that I used in creating my
ancillary tasks. It is a very advanced image editing tool which
enabled me to take a basic colour photograph and apply effects
to achieve the desired final artworks.
Da font: www.dafont.com
Dafont is an excellent resource for custom
typefaces. The chosen font is important to
help make an immediate impact and
compliment the photograpic images.

24. Youtube
We used the internet website YouTube to
research and examine horror film trailers. The
quantity and variety of trailers make it an
exceptional research tool. An added value to
the site is that it would be possible to go viral
with our trailer when finished to provide
additional “free” publicity for the final film.
Adobe Premirer Pro
We used PremierPro film editing software to take
the initial colour digital shots, edit and apply
various atmospheric effects to produce the final
finished film trailer. I found it a very flexible piece
of software which made production of the
finished trailer fairly straight forward after the
initial learning curve.

25. Blogger
Blogger is a fairly specialist media website which
allows individuals to upload commentary on films
and pictures for example. It is a valuable research
and publicity tool which allows bloggers to
advertise to a large informed specialist audience.