Theatrical Trailer

Teaser Trailers

Theatrical and Teaser trailers

Research And Planning

As individuals we closely investigated the horror genre and the thriller genre understanding how they have changed over time. We decided that both these genres were quite broad and needed to be looked further into, so we looked at the sub-genre of psychological thriller which appealed to all of us. We found artofthetitle.com to be particularly useful as we could look at different openings which were broken down and analysed. I took this exercise further by exploring se7en which closely related to our idea, below is the image I created which I used to create a detailed response to through three key concepts; mise-en-scene, cinematography and editing.

Iconic directors showed real conventions that exist among genres for example Todorov’s narrative theory shown in psychological thrillers is still used now.


For our group we explored conventions more for our opening task as we had to select a genre and apply these conventions where as in our preliminary task we did not explore this because we did not have a specific genre and we only aimed to meet the requirements. One main convention was the impact that music has on the audience, we all discovered that music builds tension and puts the audience on edge making them want to watch more. This was our main aim and so this inspired us to create a horror piece that will have this impact.

Real Media Conventions

I created an emaze to show the development from the preliminary to final opening.

Digital Technology

Digital technology is related to the equipment we used and how modern it is. 

In our preliminary task we used an older video camera that lacked in quality meaning our piece did not look as flawless as it could have done. We did use an Apple Mac computer to edit our piece together which we could all access and as the camera was the schools it did not matter if someone was not in because we could still reach it. 

Where as in our opening we did become slightly restricted as we used my phone, an iPhone 6s, because of its high resolution and so if I was ill and could not attend a filming day an alternative camera had to be used which may not have had the same resolution. Fortunately, I did attend all the filming days and even if I had missed it we could easily colour match or could change the resolution in order for all our clips to match. 

We chose to use the iPhone in our opening as it was lighter and could correct the lighting, one disadvantage though was that the phone did not have an SD slot so we could not transfer the videos immediately over to the laptop. The change in filming equipment automatically improved the standard and quality and allowed us to use the tripod more smoothly as there was a lighter weight on it.

 In both the preliminary task and opening Facebook proved to be very useful as it allowed us to communicate frequently and meant if someone could not attend a filming day they would be kept up to date with what is happening and possible changes to the storyboard if the original idea appeared not to work. 

Pixlr.com was an excellent site for composing our production companies logo as it is an online site that did not needed to be downloaded and our designs could be reached by each of us by logging in via a group account. Not only was that a benefit but it gave us access to multiple tools which some sites did not do unless you pay a subscription fee. 

I think overall our range of technologies used has stayed the same but we just changed the quality, also I think next time it would be beneficial to experiment with more technologies such as artificial lighting. 

Post-production

Post-production is the key stage for a final piece as it involves editing the sections which were filmed to combine together for a final outcome, for us this was making the opening. 

Our post-production was really good as we all in-putted ideas that were considered to lead to a successful opening but some ideas were declined as they appeared inappropriate as they headed away from our original idea that we had agreed on or they made the opening look mismatched. 

Our editing was completed predominantly by one person as they had access to a portable Apple Mac which they could use at both home and school, this meant that we could not all input. The use of one computer made sense as it meant all our work was in one place and was not being moved multiple times across lots of computers but this meant there was a lot of pressure of this individual. 

Although we had this one person editing a lot, myself and the other two candidates researched copyright free music tracks to add to our piece to create tension and improve our psychological horror based opening. 

However, for our trailer I believe it would be better to use a school Apple Mac as we can all access it and edit it equally, which will remove the pressure of having one person edit it all. I would also stick to the use of iMovie as this provides a range of editing tools such as colour corrector, multiple fonts and effects, whereas Windows Movie Maker is portrayed to be more basic and does not necessarily result in a very professional piece. 

Our preliminary task may have appeared to be suitable for a younger audience from the transition at the end. The post-production of it was a bit basic but we did experiment with different transitions through the entrance of the text at the end. 

Our progress from the preliminary task to our final opening evidently shows a huge improvement, not only in the quality of the clips but also the sleekness of the cuts and transitions. 

Creativity

In my preliminary task, my group were rather creative as we came up with an innovative idea that was different to the other groups as we thought of a unique story line to create “The Snack Exchange” which involved the use of props and not just people. The music track we used led to a fun vibe and also illustrated mystery to the story line of two snacks being swapped. Our creativity could have been raised by using an alternative medium to people such as a stop frame animation using Playdough or Lego. We were slightly restricted with our camera angles as we had to meet the mark scheme’s requirements, we did struggle with the 180˚ rule at the beginning as we crossed the line so it did not match up properly. 

In our opening we explored effects available on iMovie such as the glitch used during the appearance of the masked figure, I really liked this effect as it showed a range of skill and that we had looked into effects and not having simple transitions. We used a wider range of camera angles such as the dutch angle present during the second kitchen scene, this was a particular favourite of mine as it created disorientation and the audience would feel sorry for the girl, “Evie”.

What would you change for A2 and why?

I think overall there has been a clear development from my groups original work at the beginning of the year to now which is shown through the advancement of our story and our more challenging story line. With our preliminary task we did not have a clear genre or idea that we were following so we could not compare to any other similar videos.