Early Footage for Audience Feedback

 We showed our early footage, which is not yet complete, to a group of people to get their views on what we have done so far. This was done with the intention that we could take their comments on to improve upon our trailer. The thoughts were as so (comment on this post):

Evaluating Initial Filming

After group planning of what we wanted our film to be about in great detail, (including story boards which will be useful when it comes to filming later scenes) we started our filming. We started this by doing the first scene, this so happened to be able to be filmed at a close location. This worked well as it meant that we could easily go back and re-film or add additional parts to this scene if needed at a later stage, this we had to do as we felt that this part of the trailer needed a little bit more footage to make more of an impact, so the location was useful.

 The first scene that we filmed was the group of friends meeting up and adventuring into the forest. This was easily achieved as the planning we had done behind this scene meant that there was no confusion about what was required. Through the different camera angles used, the scene was filmed to a high standard, but at the same time did not go past our intention of making it a low budget trailer.

The sound was something that needed to be taken into careful consideration, as whilst filming we were not entirely sure how much sound the camera would pick up if filmed from a slight distance. To overcome this problem we came up with the conclusion that we could always record the sound separately then put this over the video footage at a later stage. However this was not needed for this scene as the sound picked up by the camera was at a standard which was acceptable. But we were fully aware that this technique would definitely be needed at a later stage.

We were initially going to be starting our trailer with footage of one of the girls receiving a text message asking if they wanted to go camping this weekend. This would involve an over the shoulder camera angle, this would enable the audience to see the girl receiving the message. However, even though this footage had already been taken, we agreed that this was not the best way to start a trailer. We came to this conclusion by saying that a trailer doesn’t need to show all of the details of the film, it just needs to entice the audience enough to make them want to see the film, and this footage taken would not achieve this. So we decided to skip this scene and jump straight to the friends meeting up in this field and wondering into the forest which lay just behind.

The location, as well as being practical due to how close it was to where the majority of us live, it also provided the perfect place to start our trailer and to set the mood for the rest of it. The open field in front of the forest allowed us to set up for where the male member of the group would be sitting and waiting for the others to arrive. We included a long shot of him sitting on his camping bag, smoking, this was done with the intention that it would create an establishing shot of the forest to set the scene, this shot also provides the audience initial thoughts about this character, as it gives a strong impression of the characters personality. This is important as it allows the audience to become more involved in the character and his persona. Although we do see the other characters that are going to be participating in the trailer, we aren’t really introduced to them, however we plan on doing this in the next few scenes as well feel the audience connection with the characters is important to make a great trailer.

Overall the filming of the first scene was successful, as it taught us a few things about how to go about the rest of the trailer (e.g. taking the recording of sound into consideration), and we have made a good start to how we want the final trailer to come across. 

Scene 4 - Story Board

Scene 3 - Story Board

Scene 2 - Story Board

Scene 1 - Story Board

Relationship Between the Trailer, Magazine Cover and Poster

Before I begin the actual making of the three products, an important quality that I believe must exist between them is the fact that they link together. This can be seen as a vital due to them being able to work as an end product to further enhance them from an advertising point of view. With them all working along side with each other, it will make each product stronger as it will help to anchor each of the other products and their selling points as they all have different target audiences theoretically. For instance the poster is directed at the mass public as they are put up everywhere, such as bus stops, train stations, billboards, shop windows etc... Since they are everywhere, they can not be targeted specifically at a certain audience. However, they still need to maintain their focal advertising points (e.g. for my film, the poster will still need to focus on horror). A trailer possess similar qualities to this, however it is restricted to a screen, e.g. on your computer or T.v. The magazine cover has a different audience all together as the people producing this are not the same as the people advertising the trailer and poster. This is because the magazine company itself would design the front cover and angle the film advertising in a way that would suite their specific audience.

With the trailer, magazine cover and poster having access to the public on such a large scale, it is important that they have united qualities. This has been done on many previous products, such as 'Hellboy 2':

These 3 products show a united front (even without the full footage of the trailer) this has been done through several techniques, such as, same font, main character being shown, statement about the film, same genre portrayed etc...
This is something that I want to show when creating my film trailer and ancillary texts.

Planning Location

 Before we initiated the detailed planning of what our trailer is going to involve we discussed what improvement we can make upon what we have shown to the audience who watched our presentation. We decided that location was an important factor to consider and one that had to be practical and achievable. So as a result we planned in advance possible locations that would suite our trailer.

Forest - located in Southborough, close and practical location, since this would be a place where the main footage would be taken, so location is important for this.
Abandoned house -  located in Pembury, although this is a bit of a journey, this is not important as we only need to record one part of our trailer in the house, so this could be done in one day/visit.
Field - the field that we have in mind is in front of the forest (located in Southborough), this would be very useful and effective due to the forest as a backdrop to the scenes that are set in field, this would help create an atmosphere, it would also create a very dramatic back drop for our opening scenes.

Presentation of our Ideas for Evil Awaits

Other Forms of Advertising For Our Film

The trailer which we are producing is a very important aspect of advertising for the film industry, this is vital as it shows the main gripping story line to our audience. This results in the audience being attracted to view the film, which is obviously the whole aim of the production. Some distributors see the trailer as so important to the extent that they create 'special footage' just to entice the audience even more, this has been done in the 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day' trailer, they have added extra footage of special effects just for the trailer (footage purely for advertising purposes and does not exist in the film itself). From our project of making a trailer, we are hoping to make the audience interested in actually seeing the film, this will be done through the use of the most exciting and noteworthy parts in our film, without giving away the ending, causing the audience being left on a cliff-hanger. These techniques would be the most effective for the type of trailer we wish to produce.

Other forms of advertising that we are going to go on and make after the trailer would be an advertising poster. Posters are viewed as an important form of advertising due to it accessibility to the public, as you don’t have to go out and seek it, they come to you in many different forms. Posters can be seen on: buses, magazines, handouts (leaflets), billboards, and on the side of building etc… This small example shows how publicized posters have become; this as a result makes them a very effective way of advertising as it would catch the public’s eye.  As well as that the poster would reach the mass audience, rather than those who going seeking for the trailer itself. Although posters don’t provide as much information about the plot as a trailer would, they are still a useful form of advertising when it comes to making your film known about. The use of a magazine cover is also something that we are going to be designing; this is because the use of a magazine is another method used for wide spread advertising. It would be particularly useful for a cover advertisement on a film magazine, for example ‘Totalfilm’, ‘Sight and Sound’, and ‘Empire’ magazine, as the people who purchase the magazine are interested in films, and hence the perfect target audience for our advertising.

These 3 different forms of advertising is something that I am going to link together all the way throughout the production of each individual piece. Through linking the pieces together it will make the other components stronger and more noticeable. Overall what I aim to achieve throughout making these different forms of advertising is a strong form of advertising for a variety of people.

Trailer and Their Conventions

All trailers have the basic qualities that are more or less required to make a good trailer. The qualities and why they are necessary are as follows:

      Voiceovers are used to tell the story and give credit information 
      The stars of the film are showcased 

      Key points are sometimes conveyed through titles (words on screen) 

      Conversations between characters often consist of one-liners 

      Dramatic camera angles may be chosen to show events or characters 

      Action is interspersed with actor or director credits on screen 

      Music plays an important role in creating atmosphere 

      The film’s title may not appear until the end 

      The trailer builds to a climax, where it ends

            Montage (a series of shots from different points in the film, edited together) is often used to highlight the most dramatic, humorous or fast-paced aspects of the film

  

    The main conventions have been described further in detailed and explained their importance when it comes to making an effective trailer:

Title and other text – gives the footage a more varied use of techniques other than just video

Clips. It also provides the audience with information, whether that is the title, realise

Date, or part of the plot.

Sound / music - this gives more dynamics to the trailer as it can be used to set the mood of
            the film, whether this is for the build up of tension or to emphasise a romantic scene.
            Overall sound helps to reflect the genre of the film its self.
Location / setting - this gives background information to what the film is going to be like as
          different signifiers, such as housing, or general back drop, can emphasise the plot and a
          character as an individual.
Main actors are show cased - if famous actors are used within the film, they are often show
          cased to make the film seem a high end production, which can often entice the audience.
          As well as that it also gives you more information on what the film is going to be like.
Theme - the film is portrayed through using many different techniques, such as sound/music,
          location, and text. However it can also be shown through voiceovers and dialogue, for
          instance, comical 'one line' comments show the film as being humorous, and can set the
          mood for the rest of the trailer.

Target Audience

Target audience is an important factor to take into consideration when it comes into designing the trailer, magazine cover and poster. This is because there needs to be a set group of people who would be attracted to the product. After taking into consideration what requirements, us as a group want from our trailer, we then considered what people would be interested in. The main focus is that we are going to produce a horror film, this narrows our target audience. Commonly, the younger generations are more interested in seeking the thrill that is provided by a horror film. From this we did further research into what age range we should target are advertising products at.
This graph shows the cinema attendance by age:

Since we have established that we wanted to aim for the younger generations, from the graph, it would prove wise to aim for people aged 15 - 24 due to the fact that they attend cinema more frequently than any other age group. Going for this age group also allows us to have an intense horror film as we would not have to 'tone it down' for the younger ages.
As well as that, are target audience would be for both genders since the theme of horror is not really gender specified. Although it may appeal more towards males, we do not want to narrow our audience down this specifically.

Distribution

Exhibition: This is done through many formats such as raising awareness (this is helped through the funding), improving access (this is done through Digital Screen Network having 240 cinemas in the UK, which support the growth of the UK film market)

Exit Polls

The BFI (British Film Industry) requires that any film released needs to go through the process of the exit polls. This involves at least 2 audiences from different cinemas to answer a series of questions on the film that they would have just seen. This helps the statistician decide what the set target audience for the film is. The questionnaire helps to establish why each person has gone to see the film, what their view on it was, and their general background life is. Exit polls are done so that the distributor is able to refine their target audience so that they know which ways to present future advertising as well as how to distribute the film.

This research has helped to understand the importance of a target audience, as they help to direct specifically which direction you take your advertising.

Funding Films

There are four main types of funding when it comes to producing films, they are as follows:

Film Funding - this is funding given my companies such as BFI who invest in the film. This funding covers all aspects of the actual film, for instance the planning (e.g. script writing), filming, editing etc... This is a vital fund as it helps the film to get going.

Innovation Funding - this works with the 'film funding' as it works across all areas of production. As well as that it helps the film company to develop its investors, market, distributors, audience, delivery platforms and research.

Print and Advertising Fund - this fund has been set up to help non-mainstream films produced to access a larger target audience through making their title more known about in order to increase their overall viewing. BFI has funded such films as: Another Year, Animal Kingdom, The Skin I Live In etc... In 2010 they helped 355 specialized films, this is 65% of the films shown in UK cinemas throughout this year. 

Film Export Fund - this gives films the opportunity to be showcased in important film festivals. This would provide a huge platform for international sales. This fund helps the film company to cope with such advertising as well as the technical requirements for such a thing. The BFI are involved in this mainly to promote the UK film industry and the talent that it has.

Film Trailer Case Study - Crazy, Stupid Love

Directors: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Writer: Dan Fogelman

Main Actors: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore

Release Date: 23 September 2011 (UK)

Budget: $50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $19,104,303 (USA) (31 July 2011) (3020 Screens)

Gross: $82,068,926 (USA) (25 September 2011)

Film Trailer Case Study - Avatar

Director/Writer: James Cameron

Main Actors: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver

Genres: action, adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi

Box Office, Budget: $237,000,000 (estimated)

                  Opening Weekend: $77,025,481 (USA) (20 December 2009) (3452 Screens)

                 Gross: $2,039,472,387 (Worldwide) (31 January 2010)

Release Date: 17 December 2009 (UK)

Audience Research

Before we began detailed planning on our trailer we had a group discussion with an audience to find out what sort of ideas would be most popular. Within this we discussed different plots, locations, settings and titles. The overall feedback is that the horror films would be the easiest to film and the techniques that would be used appeal to myself and my group. This audience research was useful as it allowed us to have other people's ideas as well as helping us have more of an idea what our trailer is going to be about.

Decision on Making a Trailer

With the same people in which I made my practice short film with, we have come to a conclusion that for our main project for the A2 course we are going to make a film trailer. This decision was reached by the fact that it allows us to develop more skills and also is something that would challenge us in all our strengths. However, making a trailer slightly goes against the practice of a short film as they are different concepts, although we can still use similar skills to help develop this trailer, and as well as that the audience feedback that we received can also be used to help further the ideas that we have.

Audience Feedback of our Practice Short Film

After filming and showing our short film to an audience (of roughly 15 A2 media students) the feedback that we received from this was very positive. One of the most common things that the audience liked about our film was the atmosphere that was created through the use of no colour and the background music that ran throughout it. This feedback is useful for when considering our main film project as it gives us as a team more of an idea what is most effective in the filming area. The audience felt that it worked well as the lack of colour emphasised the solemn tone of the film. This technique was done on purpose, and it is useful to know that it fulfilled its intention. However, this tactic would need to be adapted to whatever genre of film we intend to do as our main project, e.g. a comedy would most likely be done in colour to reflect the atmosphere that the audience would expect from such a film. On the other hand the audience did not think that the pacing was right as in some areas of the film it was slower than it needed to be. Although this was done so that it would go well with the pacing of the rest of the film and have a reflection upon the slow pace of the homeless woman’s life. However this would be something that we would need to think into great detail about when planning our main film project. Overall the audience feedback was useful for pointing out the ups and downs of our practice short film from an audience perspective and is something that we will take into consideration for the rest of the project.

Day in the Life - Trailer

Link to our practice short film.

Practice Short Film Planning

As a start to our Media Studies coursework we are going to produce a practice short film. This is going to be done with the intention that it would lead to us having a great deal of audience feedback on our initial ideas, this will help us build upon our final film. The likes and dislikes that the audience feel towards this practice film will help us establish better ideas that would appeal toward the audience. This is the planning for our practice film:

Title: “Day in the Life.”

Plot:  Our short film is about a day in the life of a homeless woman, as we watch her about her daily routine the audience becomes more involved and grows to be sympathetic with her and her situation in life.

Characters: Homeless Woman,

                                and Bystanders.

Team Roles: Acting - Nicole (Homeless Woman), Zoë (Bystander), Miguel (Bystander), and me (Bystander)

                                Editing – Miguel

                                Filming – Zoë and myself.

Music – Mad World, by Gary Jules. There would be no other sound (e.g. no speech)

Other Features - the film is going to be fully in black and white

                                - and the transition in-between the scenes are faded into one and other.