In what ways d
oes your fi
lm/tra
iler
develop or challenge fo
rms a
nd
conventions o
f real fi
lms a
nd
trailer?
The genre I had chosen to do (Psychological Thriller). This sub - genre is very similar to the Horror
genre, however Psychological Thrillers do not use psychical
violence. Psychological Thriller trailers are very fast paced just
like Horror trailers and make use of black screen to create tension and suspense. The trailers that I analysed also had a lot of voice over used throughout so I stuck to conventions with this idea.
Psychological Thrillers
The posters in the previous slide are well known Psychological
Thrillers that have very fast paced trailers. Fast paced trailers usually
create suspension because it shows that the film has a lot of content and that it has a lot of
action. The audience knows that the film will be good value
because lots of exciting and thrilling events take place within
the narrative.
I have used short clips in my trailer to stick to the conventions of a
Psychological Thriller.
As you can see here this clip in my trailer on plays for one second
Another big factor about Psychological Thrillers is that they
use a lot of narrative an voice overs throughout their trailers. Voice overs give the audience gain a
better understanding in what is happening in the trailer.
My trailer also includes voice overs throughout.
This keeps the story clear without giving away to much of the plot and keeping the audience
satisfied with what they see and hear but still
leaving them thinking and interested about the
upcoming film.
My trailer also includes voice overs throughout.
This keeps the story clear without giving away to much of the plot and keeping the audience
satisfied with what they see and hear but still
leaving them thinking and interested about the
upcoming film.
i have used a voice over in the opening of my trailer to grab the audiences attention
Psychological Thrillers are known for having a lot of low key lighting
shots as it creates a tense atmosphere for the audience to enjoy. Low key lighting is used to accentuate certain aspects of an
object or person which creates the sense of alienation felt by the
audience. American Psycho Trailer The Shining Trailer
I have used low key lighting in some of my shots for my trailer. I used this
because I wanted to stick to conventions and I also liked the idea of alienating my trailer from the audience. Most of my trailer is in low key lighting
because I wanted to emphasise the point of unrealism and the distortion of
the characters mind.
For Mise - En - Scene, a lot of psychological thrillers use props, most commonly a mirror is used,
most likely to portray the characters inner self as well as representing the
'dark side' of a character. I used a mirror for two shots in my trailer
which represented the erosion of the characters mental state.
Black Swan Trailer
Story board
My Trailer
The song I chose for my trailer was very fast paced and dramatic. I feel like I broke conventions with music as usually Psychological Thriller Trailers have eerie and tense music to build tension or to shock the audience. Although my music is not eerie sounding, I feel as though it still builds up tension towards the climax of my trailer and shocks the audience.
How effective is
the
combination of y
our main
product and ancilla
ry
task?
My trailer, movie poster and movie magazine all represent my chosen
genre which is Psychological Thriller. I have done by following
the conventions of other Psychological Thriller trailers,
posters and other movie magazines.
Trailer
My Trailer follows the convention Psychological Thriller genre and tells the audience what they're
going to expect and are going get in my trailer. My trailer ties in the
with conventions of my poster and film magazine, e.g. the colours are dark, I used the same person for
each task and I made sure they all stuck to my chosen genre.
The audience expects Psychological Thrillers to be fast paced, and to leave them thinking. The people that will watch my trailer enjoy Psychological Thrillers therefore my trailer is aimed towards them and my trailer will give them a basic understanding of my characters, what genre it is and a basic idea of what the story is and what to expect in the film.
Poster
When making my poster, I did not want it to look cluttered, but I still wanted to follow poster
conventions, so I added a movie title, the actors names, movie credits and an image.
For my image, I only wanted one main character in the poster. I looked at a couple of movie posters that had one main character as the image and I noticed that they were mostly mid shots or a close ups of the character. I liked the idea of the audience being able to look at the characters face and get a sense of their personality and feelings so I took this idea to the extreme.
I used an extreme close up shot of my characters eye. I wanted to use the character's eye because I felt that the eye gave the most emotion, therefore the image portrayed the idea of fear which can be seen by the audience. They would then know what genre film this poster is representing and possibly be sympathetic for whoever the character is. Also they could get the feeling that the poster could be watching them therefore become paranoid which mirrors the characters feelings in my film.
I made the image black and white as I felt it fat in perfectly with my trailer plot as well as my chosen genre. However, I kept the eye coloured as I wanted the pupil and iris to be the main focus. The iris, being the main colour in the image also gives it a sense of realism. I coloured the rest of the eye a light shade of red because I wanted it to emphasise the tiredness of my character (as the trailer explains the character does not get a lot of sleep).
There is a small silhouette in the light of the eye. I placed it there to emphasise the fact that my character is afraid of someone or something. The audience will see this and possibly feel unnerved from the small image because they can see and feel the fear of the character in the poster.
I wanted my movie title to be the brightest of the text as it is the most important. I made it white to stand out because I wanted the audience to know and remember the title of my film. The title is also the largest of the pieces of text and is in the centre because of the same reasons. The title is the same font and colour as the one in my trailer which combines the two together.
I used an effect on Photoshop to make it look like there were lights surrounding the title of the poster because I felt that just plain white text would be boring to look at so I added this effect to make it nicer for the audience to look at and make it more interesting and easier for them to remember it. I also feel as though it gives the title a sense of delusion and mystery.
My two actor's name are smaller than the title but are a little larger than my movie credits. They are also a deep red which makes them stand out from the other pieces of text and the image. Red is a sense of danger, blood and death therefore, having the actors names coloured red could indicate that something is going to happen to their characters.
The movie credits are slightly faded as I felt that they weren't to important in my poster and I placed them there because I wanted to stick to conventions. I made the ' COMING SOON' a deep red because I wanted it to stand out from the rest of the credits so it was more noticeable to the audience which creates anticipation.
Magazine
When making my film magazine, I wanted it look formal and organised, i followed magazine conventions like, the masthead, a plug, a feature article photo, a subhead and the magazine title.
When analysing other film magazines, I noticed that most of their feature article photo's were positioned in front of the masthead. I followed these conventions as I liked that it drew more attention to the feature article photo, which is the main focus and article of the magazine.
For my feature article photo, I used the same person playing the main character. I took a mid-shot of the character as I wanted to show the body language as well as facial expressions of the character. Her facial expressions show that tired and possibly fed up with whatever is happening. She is also looking away from the camera which suggests that she is lost in thought or possibly, watching something. this leaves the audience questioning what she is looking at. The person feature article photo is wearing her character clothes, which is a grey t-shirt with a red flannel shirt and a red hat. I chose these clothes for her to wear because the character she was playing dresses scruffy because in the trailer she seems a little unbalanced with herself and her life.
My masthead does not follow my colour scheme as it is blue not red. My feature article photo is placed in front of my masthead because I wanted the photo to be the main focus of my magazine and it show that the magazine is so recognisable that the audience does not need to see the whole masthead to identify the magazine.
I used the same font for my Tormented subheading. I did this because it would be recognisable to the audience and they would instantly know what this article is about.
I followed the conventions of other film magazines and added some small images of other movies to show that this magazine has other articles on other big films. This will attract a different demographic of people and possibly interest them into reading the main article.
What have you learnt from your
audience feedback?
Before designing my trailer, I made a audience survey to find out what people liked and expected from psychological thrillers. My survey was quantitive and a qualitive which benefits me because it allows me to get numeric data as well as know what people actually want in my trailer. My demographic was people above the age of 17 and who generally enjoyed Psychological Thrillers.
I started off with a simple question. "What do you like about psychological thrillers?". I asked this question because I wanted to know what effect I wanted to create for my audience. The pie chart shows that most of the people I asked like the face that psychological thrillers left them with unanswered questions. I took this into consideration when making my trailer.
I then asked them what they liked about the trailers. As you can see, an equal amount of people answered suspense and jumpscares. Therefore I added a couple of jumpscares into my trailer. I thought that it was a little difficult to create suspense in my trailer but I felt like i achieved this through use of clips, lighting and music.
I asked my audience whether they liked a lot of narrative or little narrative in trailer and more than half of them said that they don't like to have a lot of narrative as they felt as though it took away the feel of the trailer. They also said that they like to use they're imagination and think of what might be happening rather than the trailer telling them. I agreed with them therefore I only had a few parts of my trailer with narrative. I felt that it gave my trailer a sense of mystery as - like my demographic said - that it let you imagine what might be being said.
My demographic said that they didn't really mind what music was used as long as fat with the genre of the trailer/film. My music choice didn't really fit with the genre however, it still created and built tension and excitement for the audience.
My demographic did not want to much information about the protagonist or story to be given away in my trailer as they felt that it would just ruin the whole film and there would be no point to watch it if you already know what's going to happen.I took this into consideration and only gave away a small part of the plot and only showed a little character development because I wanted the audience to feel sympathetic for my character.
For this question, I already wanted to make the audience have unanswered questions from my trailer, however I wanted to see if the audience wanted the same.
A lot of my demographic asked me what I meant by 'disturbing', and I answered with violence or drug use etc. It was then when they answered no because they thought that if I used disturbing clips or images then they would instantly think that my trailer would be for a horror film rather that a psychological thriller.I understood what they meant by this however, I used a clip in my trailer of a blood covered pair of scissors. I felt that although it is not violent it is still a disturbing clip as it leaves the audience questioning what happened.
I based the story of my film/trailer on this question because when I asked this, I was unsure of what people wanted and expected in a Psychological Thriller. My story was about a girl who had insomnia and needed medication. She took some medication that was not tested given to her from the doctor and started to have side affected which in time affected her mental state. This fits in perfectly with what people wanted and expected.
I then went back to the same people after I had finished my trailer and asked them 4 questions about it. Here is what they said.
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Did you like my Trailer?
Yes
No
I started with a simple question, "Did you like my trailer?". The majority of my audience said that they did, however, a few people said that they didn't because they didn't understand the story or what was going on in my trailer.
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What Genre do you think my trailer is?
Horror
Psychological Thriller
Other
When asking them what genre they thought my trailer falls under, there was a lot of conflict between the Horror and the Psychological Thrillers genre's as my demographic thought my trailer used conventions from both genres.
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What did you like about my trailer?
Tension
Dark
Unreal
Other
Most of my demographic said that they liked the unrealism of my trailer and that it got them interested and questioning about the character's metal state. The few people who said other wrote that they liked the fast paced clips and that it kept them on the edge of their seats when watching my trailer.
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Would you watch this film if released?
Yes
No
Maybe
Most of my demographic said that they would love to see this as a movie because they wanted to know what happens to the characters in the trailer. A few of them then went on to ask if I was going to make it into a film and were disappointed to hear that I wasn't.It was an equal result for both the answers, no and maybe. The people that said no said that the trailer and story of my film did not interest them. The others were unsure and they felt like the story was to complex for them to completely understand.
How did you use new media
technologies in the construction
and research, planning and
evaluation stage?
Research and Planning When analysing other trailers, film magazines and posters, I used Microsoft Word. This makes it easier to upload to my blog. After analysing everything, I began my planning, however, I did not use any technology for my plans or storyboard, I drew them all by hand. I then had to scan them all into my user and then upload them to my blog. This wasted time, however I preferred drawing my plans rather than using technology like Photoshop or Microsoft Word.
ConstructionWhen creating my trailer, I used a program called Adobe Premier. This technology allowed me to easily organise and move around clips that I had recorded using a video camera. The cut tool also allowed my to cut unwanted or unnecessary sections of my clips.
Example of Cut tool
One of my clips was to long and it pushed my trailer over the limited time that we were given. So I used the time stretch tool to speed up the clip so it fat in with the fast paced conventions as well as staying within the time limit.
I shortened the clip from 8 seconds to 4.
I added Dip to Black transitions to some of my clips for my trailer as I felt that it created tension and suspense.
I used the Dip to Black transition.
For my film poster and magazine, I used the program Photoshop Element 8. The first thing I did on this technology was to create layers. I did this because this makes it easier for me to create different effects on different layers and it's also easier for me to edit and organise them.
I could also change the opacity of each layer which was effective when creating my smoke effect for my magazine as it gave it the faded look.
This drop down list allows you to change the style of the layer. For example, I used the overlay layer to change the blue and red so it looked more realistic on my poster.
I used the Gaussian Blur filter to blur some paint brush lines I had created. I did this because I wanted to create an ominous feeling in my poster.
I could change the radius of the blur. The higher the radius, the more blurred the layer will become. As you can see, after
applying the filter, it blurred the layer creating a smoke like effect.
Lastly I used a filter called Maximum. This tool works the same as the Gaussian Blur tool with the radius. However, instead of blurring the layer, it compresses it making it appear thinner. I used this to create my smoke effect on my poster and magazine.
Evaluation For my evaluation I used two different technologies. One was Microsoft PowerPoint and the other Coral Show. Both technologies did the same thing, however I used one at school and the other at home. Both had similar features; New Slide, Add Shape, Add Textbox, Add Picture, Transitions etc.
