EVALUATION

QUESTION 1

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

Film Trailer

INTERTITLES, CREDITS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFERENCES

- From Paranormal Activity

After researching different film trailers we found it was conventional to show institutional references at the start of the trailer to make sure they receive some of the credit. Therefore, we decided to follow this convention and show the two production companies which we chose to produce our film which is BBC Films and Hammer. It makes the finished trailer appear more realistic by showing the companies which would have produced it.

- From our trailer -

INTERTITLES, CREDITS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFERENCES

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

We researched the Blair Witch Project as it is a thriller documentary which is very similar to what we wanted to produce. We studied the intertitles used and they provide viewers with the basic plot so we can understand what is happening in the trailer. We decided to do something similar to fill audiences in on what is happening in our trailer. In the Blair Witch Project they state the year, the relationship between the people and where they’re from. We decided to include this information to set the scene for viewers. We noticed that the text is left hand aligned and roughly in the centre of the screen. We followed this convention as it makes the text easy to read. The black background represents the genre thriller as it connotes seriousness and a dark storyline.

INTERTITLES, CREDITS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFERENCES

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

Another conventional thing in film trailers is to include a quote and star rating from a magazine or newspapers to excite viewers and to see someone else's opinion of the film. We thought this is a good and effective technique used to make audiences interested in the trailer so we included this as one of our intertitles. Our quote is from Empire magazine because for our magazine front cover we made Empire the brand. We wanted to create links between the products we produced. Looking at the quotes used in real trailers we found that the quotes were short yet excites viewers. It also normally links to the genre of the film so our quote was “Thrilling and full of suspense”. This strongly suggests that the film is a thriller. The text for the Blair Witch Project is centred and in the centre of the screen so we did this. The centre of the screen is where most people look so the text gets attention by being positioned here. For all of the intertitles used throughout The Blair Witch Project a black background is used and white text. This looks scary and serious reflecting the film genre well and it creates a very professional look so we followed this convention and applied it to our trailer.

INTERTITLES, CREDITS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFERENCES

- From our trailer

After studying other film trailers we found that it isn’t conventional to place an image in the background when the film title appears onscreen. However, we decided to do this anyway because we thought it looks very effective and would attract viewers attention. We wanted to visually link our magazine cover, poster and film trailer by included on element on each product. This was the antagonists eyes. We made the antagonists eyes unique so viewers would remember it and then remember the film title. The eyes are the unique selling point for our film. We placed the title over the image which suggests that the character you can see is the dead man who features in the film. We made the text of the title white which follows the text colour used throughout the trailer and it relates to the colour of the antagonists eyes. The colour also creates a cold ghostly feeling reflecting the characters personality. The text does zoom off screen though which is conventional for a thriller. It jumps out at viewers slightly scaring them as it is unexpected further linking to the genre thriller.

INTERTITLES, CREDITS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFERENCES

- From Unknown

- From our trailer

It is conventional for credits to appear at the end of the trailer for a couple of seconds. We followed this convention. To do this we did research into what the credits normally say and what else normally appears on screen at the same time. It’s conventional for the production company logos to appear on screen at the same time so we followed this and put both Hammer and BBC Films logos beneath the credits. To make our credits look professional we analysed the way in which they’re normally written. They’re always in capital letters but a smaller font size is used for the less important words like “and” and “by”. We followed this convention which makes our credits look professional from just a glance. We also noticed that it is situated in the centre of the screen and the text is centre aligned so we did this to our text to make it look realistic. A black background is normally used as credits don’t normally help to sell the film because they’re only on screen for a couple of seconds, not enough to read them properly.

SHOT TYPES AND CAMERA MOVEMENTS USED

It is conventional in pretty much all film trailers to include a variety of different shots. Doing this shows viewers that visually the film will be interesting to view. You need to include a variety of different shots and change them depending on where you want to position viewers. As our film is shot like a documentary the shot is always like a point of view shot from Euans point of view. This is very similar to The Blair Witch Project so we used this film trailer when considering the different shot types we should use.

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

Medium shots of one character in the frame is conventional for a documentary style film. It positions viewers as the person behind the camera and makes it feel as though the other person is talking directly to you bringing viewers into the film. This is conventional for thrillers as it scares viewers even more if they are positioned inside the film. The fact that we are positioned at Amanda's’ eye level puts viewers and her on the same social level allowing audiences to relate to her. It makes you feel like you’re in the same situation to her.

SHOT TYPES AND CAMERA MOVEMENTS USED

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

One of the last shots shown in The Blair Witch Project film trailer is a Dutch angle. The camera falls to the floor. It’s suggesting the person filming has either dropped the camera to be able to run faster or has been attacked. It leaves viewers wonder what has happened to them. This links well with the thriller genre. It builds suspense and worried viewers. Therefore, we decided to follow this effective convention and use this shot type and movement at the end of our trailer. You wonder what has happened to Euan and what might appear on screen next. You wonder if you would see the antagonist for the first time which builds suspicion and tension which are feelings audiences expect to gain from watching a thriller film.

SHOT TYPES AND CAMERA MOVEMENTS USED

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

Tracking shots from behind other characters is also conventional. It creates a feeling that viewers are following the person they can see in front once again placing them inside the film. It is conventional for a thriller film to do this as placing viewers inside the film will unease them which is what they should expect from a thriller trailer. It also positions viewers at the back of the group making you feel worried about what could come up from behind you as the camera isn’t showing you what is happening behind. Again, medium shots are often used in this style of filming. It suggests that the person holding the camera isn’t that far away from the others in front and not too far away.

SHOT TYPES AND CAMERA MOVEMENTS USED

- From Fido

- From our trailer

Pans are used quite a lot in film trailers to set the scene for viewers to get a good look of the location. In this scene from Fido the camera pans to the left to allow viewers to get a good look of the classroom and to understand that it is an ordinary classroom. A long shot is used of the classroom to enable audiences to get a good view of it. The pan we used goes to the right and is a long shot in the woods. As you can’t see anything else it creates a sense of loneliness and a lost feeling as there are no paths to be seen. These are conventional feelings to experience by watching a thriller. It shows viewers that there is no where to hide if anything happens. They’re completely by themselves.

Our main filming location was in a wood. We chose this location as we found it was conventional in thriller films and our target audience also voted it as one of the best filming locations for thriller films. This location creates a sense of loneliness, lost and away from civilisation. You never know what’s out there and what could jump out. Abandoned buildings are also conventional for thriller films and was voted by are target audience as the best location for a thriller film. Therefore, we shot a scene of what looks like an abandoned shed which in our trailer is a place where a man was said to have hung himself. It is conventional that something spooky happening in the abandoned location which frightens that characters.

FILMING LOCATIONS

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

SHOT TYPES AND CAMERA MOVEMENTS USED

- From The Blair Witch Project

- From our trailer

It is conventional in thriller films to normally include a running scene. This builds tension as you are worried for the characters and you wonder what’s chasing after them. The camera is handheld and is jolting quite a bit showing that the character holding the camera is also running. The point of view shot also again places viewers inside the film to try and create feelings similar to the ones you’d feel if you were there. During running scenes with hand held cameras, the camera sometimes sees the other characters and sometimes sees only trees and can go blurry. The scene isn’t taken from different angles to create the documentary feeling. This scene from The Blair Witch Project hugely influenced our running scene. We used all of the techniques they used such as the jolting camera. This creates confusion and worry for viewers. We also see the characters disappear from shot every now and then because no Euan is in such a rush that he isn’t focusing on what he’s filming at this point.

• Our lighting is conventional compared to the film trailer “Unknown” as it uses light sources which can be seen in the footage. As our filming was all done outside our lighting was all provided by the sun.

• Our lighting isn’t completely conventional for a thriller film as it was shot during the day. Therefore, the footage looks quite bright. Normally thrillers include dark scenes which create a sense of mystery and builds tension as you can’t completely see what’s happening. Our lighting isn’t conventional as we thought that in real life scary things don’t always happen in dark lighting so to create the documentary style feeling we wanted to make it seem realistic. Being realistic means having scary things happening in daylight as well and in the dark. We think as we didn’t follow the convention the footage doesn’t look completely scary but by not seeing the antagonist throughout the trailer makes viewers scared because they don’t know what to expect and what to be afraid of. People tend to be afraid of the unknown so this is why we kept the antagonist anonymous. Therefore, we thought if we followed other genre conventions for thriller films, the lighting would just add a more realistic feeling.

LIGHTING

• We studied the editing of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity the most as they are the same genre and style of film that we wanted to produce. We noticed that it is conventional for this genre and style of filming to not use any transitions between footage. This makes it feel like you are just watching the footage through the camera lenses as if the footage hasn’t been edited. It makes the feel realistic. Therefore, when we came to edit our trailer we didn’t use any transitions between shots.

• Looking at a variety of film trailers we saw that the pace of the trailers tend to pick up roughly just over half way through. For thriller films this is really conventional as it builds tension leaving viewers on the edge. We kind of followed this convention by using a couple of shorter length shots towards the end apart from the end scene. The last scene was quite long but was fast paced as it was of characters running so it still helped to build up the pace of the trailer towards the end to leave audiences worried and to build tension.

• We included non- diegetic sound as well as diegetic sound. The non- diegetic sound is used to build tension. We used it and edited footage in time with the tracks as we found this is conventional for pretty much all film trailers. It helps to highlight certain character actions, movements etc.

• We left the majority of the diegetic sounds in because we wanted some dialogue in the scenes to be heard. Also, we liked the sound when the characters walked through the woods of crunching leaves. It adds a realistic element.

• Using diegetic and non- diegetic sounds is very conventional in all film trailers as it helps to express the film genre and explain the plot of the film. Therefore, we knew this was a convention which must be followed.

EDITING

• Much like in The Blair Witch Project, in our trailer you don’t ever see footage of our antagonist yet you know something is there. It is conventional in thrillers to connote that an antagonist is there to create suspicion so we applied this to our trailer. You see characters investigating a place that the antagonist once was much like in The Blair Witch Project when they see the person made out of sticks. Also, the running scenes suggests something bad is following them. As you don’t see the antagonist properly, it is represented as this mysterious character. Audiences tend to be afraid of the unknown making this character someone who you wouldn’t want to meet.

CHARACTER REPRESENTATIONS

From our trailer From The Blair Witch Project

• You never see the person behind the camera in The Blair Witch Project trailer which creates a feeling for viewers that they could be this other character. This is what we did in our trailer. You never see Euan, you only hear his voice.

• Amanda and Emma are represented as friendly characters who you feel like you get to know quite quickly and are people anyone would be able to get along with. It is important to represent them like this to make viewers feel as though they have a group of friends they can rely on throughout the film because through the use of camera techniques they feel like they’re placed inside the film. Audiences wouldn’t be as attracted to the film if the main characters came across as people who disserved to be haunted. However, viewers sympathise with them. This idea came from The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. You feel like you build a friendship with the characters through what you see in the trailer and then feel like you can relate to them. This makes you sympathise with the characters and you feel worried for them if anything happens to them. This helps to create conventional feelings you expect to get when watching thriller films.

CHARACTER REPRESENTATIONS