Update 14/12/2011

Its Christmas soon! Masked Productions has worked very hard over this last term and needs a well deserved break. However through our Christmas holidays we will each be creating mock ups of how we would like to see our Movie poster and magazine front cover.

We hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Update 5/12/2011

Today in our meeting we discussed our ideal filming day which we hope to be on the 7th of january. We decided on this date as we would like to get our film shot as soon as possible also we felt this date would give us time to practice the shots needed a numerous of times to make shooting easier.
We also discussed props and equipment throughly over again in terms of who will provide what, this meeting has helped our group become organized and know what is in-store for the future of Masked Productions.

Skill Development: Planning & Research Part 2

As we are working in a group we have had to learn as group how to prepare, plan and research appropriately in order to get certain tasks done efficiently. 

Planning and research skills have been one of the major things we have increasingly developed in our A2 coursework, unlike last year when we did not really do as much planning and research.  Setting ourselves deadlines and meeting them in time is also another thing that we have improved over the last year. Each member in our group done research into horror films, conventions of horror films and conventions of horror teaser trailers over the summer. This is something each member of our group would have most likely not done or thought of doing last year for our AS coursework.

Planning in advance and also researching has enabled us to require the relevant information for our teaser trailer as to come up with the best ideas to help us get an effective teaser trailer. For instance one of the concepts for our teaser trailer was:

"Title Ideas: Liminal Nightmare, Obsessed
Horror Sub Genre: Slasher
No. Of Characters: 2/3
Setting: Torture chamber salon"

This concept was about Supernatural type man who has such a disturbed psychological obsessed. He was tortured and stripped of all his hair and clothes from a gang of school kids when he was young. As he grows us, he seems to be unable to fully recover from the traumatic events and leave the past in the past. He then starts torturing girls related to his past attackers, giving the victims a devilish nightmare in a manic torturing fest to get his own back.

Researching in advance and also planning helped us to think of this concept and then develop it further by doing more research into some well known horror films containing an obsession.

Also my planning and research skills have been improved an example of this is before we started filminh out trailer myself also the group filmed practice shots to give us a better idea of how we want the shots to be in our trailer. Doing this really benefited us a lot as we could peferct the type of shots we want in advance before we started filming it. Once myself and the group did this it allowed us to adjust and perfect the ideal story board we wanted. This is evidence on where my planning and research skills have certainly developed from AS to A2.

Skills development: Planning

This Blog post looks at the different ways in which we have developed our skills since our AS coursework, especially in the planning of our teaser trailer. 

One of the most important things we have learnt at this stage of our coursework is how to create professional looking storyboards, shooting scripts and treatments as part of our organisation documents to convey our ideas for our teaser trailer. Unlike before when I created my storyboards for instance my GCSE media coursework to create a horror movie trailer, planning for our teaser trailer has taught us all how important it is to include certain elements in our storyboards as part of our planning.

One thing that we learnt is how important it is  to include the movements that are meant to take place in our teaser trailer. This is done in two ways, drawing arrows inside the shots on the storyboard which will represent any character movement that is meant to take place in the teaser trailer and drawing arrows outside the shots on the storyboard for any camera movements for that particular shot. 

The above image shows some of the arrows we drew into our storyboard to represent any camera and character movements that we plan to take place in our teaser trailer. For example the first shot has a arrow inside the shot box pointing to the left. This means that the character is going to move the crowbar towards the left direction as they are walking.

We also learnt that we need to include the times in which each shot will take place and how to include it in our storyboard by marking it down using the terms 'Interior Day/Night' and Exterior Day/Night'. Doing this means that it would be easier for us as a group to know when each shot is meant to take place and also made it easier when it came to creating our shooting script. Below are pictures which show our storyboard before we knew about this and after we developed our storyboad further and included these terms in it. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Our A2 coursework has also helped us learn how to create shooting scripts. Before we started this part of our coursework, we were not aware of what shooting scripts were, how they would be used, why they were important and how easy they make filming when it comes down to it. After however learning this, we then went out and created our own shooting script for our horror teaser trailer. Having a shooting script is going to allow us to plan prior filming. This is good as it means we will know what scenes/shots we will be filming first as well as also showing our teachers that we are ready and set to start filing for our horror teaser trailer.

Update 24/11/2011

As a group we feel we need to practice more on our practical skills for the project. As a team we have come together and decided that over the next couple of sessions we will be practicing shots from our storyboard and uploading more test film. We also want to practice our editing skills further so that our editor_____ gets as much practice as they need. We are happy to note that our practice skills for make-up went very well and our make-up artist Nadine got a chance to practice on various people in the class to familiarise herself with the make-up we will be using on set. Check out the blog post for some amazing pictures and videos.

Practice Practice Practice: Make-up Testing

To make sure that we were prepared for our trailer, we did some make-up tests so that we had an idea of what our make-up would look like and to practice different techniques and how time consuming make-up would be.

I am in charge of doing make-up, so I ensured I practiced to get myself familiar with the products.
The equipment we used were:

• Face Paints x 6
• Bruising Wheels x 2 - Ben Nye Severe exposure, Ben Nye Fresh scab 
• Sponges
• Brushes
• Morticians Wax
• Ben Nye Nose Scar Wax

We were first given a tutorial by our teacher on the best ways of creating realistic open cut wounds and the efficient ways of using the Ben Nye Fresh scarring.

Here are some examples of practice make-up I did of some open wounds and scars possibly to be used within our trailer.

Further Audience Research

As well as conducting audience research through conversations on Blackberry Messenger and facebook we also created a survey using surveymonkey.com which enabled us to collect data much easier and quicker as well as analyse.

Below is the qualitative feedback we received.

Age was an important question to ask because as a team we had a certain age group in mind so we wanted to ensure that it was a particular age group who were targeting and receiving feedback from. The majority were of the age of 17 & 18 are preferred target group. This information has helped us to decide that perhaps our film should consider being an age 15 certificate as feedback we received were from a majority of under 18's it would enable our film and research to reach a wide spread of people.

Question 2 we were surprised to see that the majority of people did not what to see explicit content within the trailer. This could be perhaps for reasons like not wanting to give away shocking and explicit moments so that they can receive the shock factor in the movie and it not being given away within the trailer. However it was important to note that there was not a big difference in the numbers who wanted explicit content shown and who didn't.



Question 3 we gave a variety of horror films which were from different horror genres the most popular were "The Grudge", "Paranormal Activity" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" which were a combination of slashers and psychological thriller genres. We were happy to find that "A Nightmare on Elm Street" were among the favourites as m any of our trailers elements will be based around this film.

Question 4 gave us an insight that our target audience definitely did NOT like dialogue within their trailers  from this evidence we know it is best not to include any dialogue as it did not appeal.

Question 5 portrayed that some of our audience were not particularly major horror fans. Despite this it encouraged us to make sure we produce a good product to encourage those who may not really watch horrors to really go out and see our film.

 The qualatitive data we collected for question 6 showed us that our audience prefered the "traditional" male killer so using a male killer would perhaps create us to connect to our audience more as we are using a feature that they personally prefer.

Question 7 was an important question as timing is everything within teaser trailers as its important that their not too short or too long to ensure the audience is clear about the product they are being shown but not giving too much away. It is clear that from our research that our trailer needs to be inbetween 30seconds and 1 minute and 30 seconds.

It is clear that music has to be a strong point within our teaser trailer as our audience values this most within horror as it creates the atmosphere as without music horror's generally lose their scare factor. Editing and lighting were also considered to be one of the top elements, showing us clearly that these three elements combined and done well are what makes a successful trailer. It is interesting to note that many did not think that actors were a top priority this is significant as in many horror films the actors are usually unknown low-key actors.

Practise Teaser Trailer

This is the practice teaser trailer we have created using some of the test shots we did.

Film Tests : Nadine, Ashley, Elis,Lekan

Throughout our coursework we have filmed random short footage to help us in practice using cameras showing the skills we have learned whilst also trying to improve the techniques we have learned in lessons.

7th November

Audience Research Conclusion

The audience research we have done has allowed us to see what type of conventions our target audience would like to see in horror teaser trailers. Using their answers we came together and decided which things we should include in our teaser trailer as to assure that it is effective. 


The print screens of the conversations showed the opinions of potential audiences that would watch our teaser trailer.  This qualitative way of gathering information was the fastest way of understanding people's opinions when it come to horror films and horror teaser trailers. We tried to make the questions as varied as possible so that we would have more ideas to help us make our teaser trailer good in terms of attracting the audience. We already knew typical conventions of horror teaser trailers and these questions helped us to think about ways of going against these typical conventions that will still appeal to our target audience. 


Using this research we then created a mood board which allows us to see our typical ideal target audience for our horror teaser trailer. We then created another moodboard that shows the typical things that our ideal target audience would like to see in a horror teaser trailer moodboard. 


Overall the research we gathered from our audience will now educate us into making the best horror teaser trailer possible because we have an idea of what attracts the audience when watching horror teaser trailers. It also allows us to see our target audience's different points of view instead of just one, which has assured us with certain decisions we were making. 

Audience research

I asked some questions about my groups teaser trailer, I was trying to see what people liked.        

Here are a list of questions I asked.

Here are questions I asked on facebook, and received answers too.

I have continued the same conversation

I started to ask more specific questions because I felt as if it would make the trailer a bit more special.

From my primary research I found out that the target market of teenagers 16 and over wanted something different than the usual. Mostly would see the opposite of most conventions. I found that interesting and because of this we might do things a bit different. However after asking people about the specific genre’s they didn’t know a lot about that so a lot of describing had to be done to actually understand what people wanted. Blood was something people thought was a little too conventional and didn’t necessarily want to see too much but understood it probably would have to be shown.

In these screen munches as you can see I have asked questions which will directly affect the production of my groups trailer. They are questions which will the interest of viewers.

Mood Boards

MOOD BOARD

As our task was to create a Horror Teaser Trailer this mood board represents some of the focuses which contributed to our final idea of our Teaser Trailer. Some of them include a Pyscho killer such as the killer in nightmare in elm street also a female vicitim. Our killer is going to have an iconic weapon/mask, we got these idea's from such films as scream and texas chainsaw masacare, there iconic weapons make the killer very unique and in the mood board it inclued the inconic scream mask, also the knife as the weapon. The mood board includes all things which we think make a horror scary which will help us with ideas for props and settings in for our trailer.

Ideal Audience Mood Boards




Costume

Costumes within horror film will be conventionally different from costumes within action or children's film and trailers. Costumes further add to the authenticity of the production of a film or trailer so it is essential that within our trailer we get our costumes right to fit in perfectly with chosen props and make-up.

Female Character Costume
As our trailer consists of dreams and our protagonist will be sleeping in shots we have decided to create the female to be only wearing pyjamas even in shot where she is in the dream as it will make it more known that although she is in a dream it is actually happening to her in real life. Whereas if she was wearing ordinary clothes in a dream sequence it will be too clear to the audience that she is in a dream which we don't want as some confusion within in the audience is what we want to generate as it creates more fear due to the unknown. Th Pj's will be accompanied by socks for the actress feet as she will have some running to do in shots.

We will need two identical set of PJ's one for scenes where she will be covered in blood and her costume perhaps ripped and one set which we will use for shot of our actress sleeping

I have noticed that within older horror films such as J-horrors when sleepwear is used it is usually old fashioned sleepwear used back in older generations. As a group we decided this was not a fashion we would want to follow as it would not appeal to our audience who are of a younger generation 15-25 year old.

Watching this fashion showed me a variety forms of sleep wear our character could actually wear which would be more modern to our audience.

Within the horror genre we know that there can be sexual element within it we feel that our character should have a hint of this in costume so a top and shorts combination of pj's would be nice as some skin would be revealed and enhance the use of blood needed. However we realise our actor may not feel comfortable with this so we have also go the option of our actress wearing a vest top and long trouser PJ bottoms style of sleep wear. Our Pj's will be quite a bright colour to contrast against the darkness of the killers costume.

Male Killer Costume

Within our trailer there are not are many shot of the killer, however the killers costume is of importance as he is one of the main characters. We decided to be conventional with our killers clothing by insuring his costume is dark to contrast with the victims brightness of costume, connoting good vs evil.  We have decided to use this coat as our killers costume along with a pair of leather gloves showing he is skilled and not a man to be messed with or caught. The coat is dark and has a logo on one of the sleeves making the costume to have a bit of identity and not be just a standard black boring coat.

Pre Poduction: Make-Up

Within our trailer make-up will play a huge role, as in horror make-up and special effects is important as it gives an authentic feel to the piece as well as creating that horror and gore aspect which is a convention within horror.

The make-up used within the teaser trailer will be carried out by along with the assistance of other team members. Within our trailer the female protagonist will mainly have special effect make-up applied as she is the main victim within the trailer. Types of make-up effects we would like to use are bruising, wounds, cuts and some rope burn.

To make the effects as realistic as possible I have researched YouTube videos which have tutorials of how to accomplish the perfect bruising etc. Through the use of the tutorials shown which i will use it will further help in my practice of our productions team desired look.

Equipment we will need:
-Brushes
-Bruising wheel
- Fake blood
-Rubber/latex

These ttutorials will help me create my flesh wounds which will mainly feature on our actors face, hands and possibly neck depending on how gory we want our look to be.

Bruising would also look effective and would work well with the wounds I'll be using the tutorial along with the wounds one to create realistic bruising.

I also came across this tutorial of a slashed throat, although we wont be using this in our production, it showcases examples of how effective bruising and wounds look together, it also shows a special product our group are considering of purchasing as the design look so real. I personally found the video interesting and it is so evident of the importance of special effects and make-up in the horror genre.

Props

To create an aunthentic piece props will need to be used for our trailer. The mood board previously created has helped us come up with ideas of what elements and props which make people feel frightened. To gather some ideas to inspire what types of props to use I visted a prop shop and took pictures of props which we could perhaps use or use element of.

For our group various types of props will need to be used so the trailer has the right effects and links to the shots and story we are trying to show. Props we need in our trailer are:

• Weave - we will need this to spread around the torture chamber as the hair is our killers obsessive item
• Rope - tie victim
• Mirror
• Scissors
•  barber chair/ computer chair

As our trailer links with the obseesion of hair, inspired by the Danilo Restivo case we though the idea of a barber chair would be a great prop to use within our torture chamber. This may be another hard prop to get hold of so an alternative would be a computer chair which has similar qualities to a barber chair.

Iconic prop

Within our trailer we believe it is important to have an iconic prop as many of the most famous horror killers are known for their iconic prop, costume or saying. To fit in with the slasher genre an iconic prop is key. Our group decided that the iconic prop would be a crowbar as looking extensively at horror film we have not yet come across any horros that used this weapon as their key instrument of torture. We orginally wanted to use scissors but felt this was too close to the film "Edward Scissor Hands". However we realise that this may be a hard prop to get hold of so the crow bar look-a-like found in the prop shop would be a useful alternative.