Planning for production - A Song I think links well to our movie

Today I was listening to a song called 'Successful' by Drake and it really spoke out to me because of the lyrics on the song, especially the repetition of "I just wanna be successful". What I also realized was the link between this song and The Examined, in the sense that the main goal of the characters in our film is success, and them willing to do anything to achieve it and the repetition of "I just wanna be successful" in this song I feel really points out the underlying thing that our target audience wants, success and so links well to not only the themes of our movie, but also to our target audience.

Because of this I think it would be useful to play this song with those repeated lyrics at the start of our trailer where we will be showing shots of the school, as we want to implement this idea of success into the minds of our target audience.

Video of the song:

Planning for production - Idea of a Shot I Had

Lately I've been thinking deeply about the variation of shots we should use in our trailer, particularly in the killing scenes. In class recently we have been talking about how we might show, as the last shot of the entire trailer, someone getting dragged back of a chair of finishing 'the killers exam', this is in order to shock audiences by creating a lasting visual effect that they will remember. This will appear after the title and release date of the movie is shown and so kind of spoils this, appeared to be, equilibrium in order to shock and surprise audiences.

My original inspiration for this show as from looking at the poster of a song by rapper Kanye West called 'Monster'. In this poster there is a image of a arm around his shoulder almost pulling him back, whilst makeup is used fantastically to make Kanye West himself, and the actual arm look horrific, thus playing on themes of horror.



This use of a image to shock audiences as the last shot in a trailer has also been used in a variety of horror movies, including Freddy vs. Jason where the director has used a shot of Freddy Kreuger appearing out of nowhere to create, as a said before, a last shocking image that audiences will remember. We plan to similarly do the same.

Planning for production - Update of The Examined Movie Poster

This is a updated version of The Examined teaser poster and shows general positive improvements that were made in the aftermath of our front planning of movie posters. To update our already existing one what we have done, is remove some of the images that were in the image before that we felt were nonessential and just acted as a distraction the actual title, and also add production details of the movie (production company name, name of director, name of actors etc). However, I still feel as if the poster is under-par as I feel it doesn't really represent of give any hints towards what are film is actually about and so something needs to be addressed to fix this, also there are still many thing not present on the poster that should be there, for example; there is no production company logo, no links to external social websites, the typography of the title needs to be bigger and brighter because at the moment it hardly stands out and there is no tagline to further entice audiences to see the film. When all of this has been addressed, the poster will look a lot more effective, and will act as a big promotional tool for our movie.

Planning for production - Tagline of The Examined

Following up on my research on taglines, I have finally came up with the tagline of The Examined after having a long and hard think about it. Originally I was planning to just use one of the rhetorical questions we created in one of our earlier tasks, but I realized that whilst it did well in revealing the theme and some of our movies plot, I don't feel it revealed much about the genre, something I learned was imperative in my research on taglines. Instead I came up with the tagline 'Only the talented and tainted will survive', as not only does it play on the subject of school life and exams, it also highlights the genre through the use of the word 'survive', and also does well in being short and blunt, whilst at the same time revealing what some of the movie is about.

Planning for production - A Improvement I Would Make To The Front Plan of the Movie Poster

One improvement I would most definitely make, would be to try and include a image of perhaps a character dead in the poster, I had the idea of including a character sitting up against the whiteboard dead with blood smudged all over the board. This is because at the moment although I feel the idea is good, I believe that the image itself of just a whiteboard is quite bland, and wouldn't really strike out to a audience instantly, so the image of a character dead against it will provide something that will immediately catch audiences eyes, and as a result would be very useful for promotion.

Planning for production - Inspiration for my drawing of the front plan (main image)

Like with all great creations, when creating the front plan of my movie poster (second image in 'front plan of movie posters'), what I first of all did was look at different movie posters of movies with similar themes, refer back to my analysis on movie posters, and also look at different icons/ images that linked to the themes of 'The Examined'.

The movie poster that I looked at was 'Saw', as I felt it portrayed similar themes to The Examined of isolation, as well as a similar story as likewise with our movie, in Saw characters are put into a test for their lives. However, when looking at the the poster I realized while it is very successful in highlighting themes of isolation and fear, it in no way actually relates to the plot of The Examined as I feel that it is imperative that this aspect of 'school life' is made evident in the poster.



So what I did next was look at different objects that you would see present in a school, and see if I could subvert these different objects in order to make a film poster that can relate to our movie. So after looking at various school objects like pens, desks, rulers, compasses etc. I lastly looked at a normal school whiteboard where it suddenly struck to me out of nowhere, that I could use a actual whiteboard with details on it about The Examined (film name, release date, tagline etc) and use it in a exam theme (exam name = film name, start time = release date), in order to relate to the themes of our movie whilst also maintain the horror aspect through the typography.

What I then did to make sure the the poster still revealed something of the genre, was add a tagline "failure = death, success = life" in order to express the genre in the poster, as well as using a font similar to 'slasha' for the typography in order to make the genre of the movie still remained evident.

Social Media as a promotional tool

Today on twitter the number one trending topic in the world was #StepsToSurviveAHorrorMovie. Not only did this provide me with tips on how, ‘The Final Girl’ Sarah in The Examined might go about surviving in our movie, it also made me realise the big impact social media can have on a film, and the way in which me and my group could use the convergence of social media and film, as a promotional tool for our film. Particularly, as social media is targeted mainly at teenagers/ young adults who are our primary target audience. Because of this, I now plan to report back to my group and discuss ways in which we can use social media as part of our promotional campaign to promote our film.

Front Plan of Movie Poster

Here are two hand drawn idea of the movie poster that I had:
Front Plan of Movie Poster

10 ideas typography & textual analysis

Research for production - research on tag lines of popular horror movies

On my research into trailers in the trailer analysis and movie posters, something I realized immediately was the way in which horror movies and movies in general use tag lines to express the general theme of the movie as well as the genre of the movie, the tag line is also useful in providing audiences with a bit of a hint of what the film is about.

Taking this into consideration me and my group have decided that I should do some independent research into the tag lines of popular horror movies, the tag lines considered to be the best (in terms of horror) and how these movies use these tag lines as a representation of their movie. From this bit of research we should have a better idea on what we shold be looking for when creating our own tag line.

To do this I have looked at the top ten movie tagline's list from five different websites and produced a analysis on the four tagline's that come up the most on all five websites.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED

The thing I've learnt most about tagline's from this task is that to create a really good quality tagline for your film it MUST be able to create a sense of enigma, this is because audiences have to be intrigued by the tagline and has to leave them wanting to know more so it builds up their anticipation for the actual movie. The tagline must also reflect the themes and plot of the movie, without giving too much away. Also, the conventions of horror must be conveyed in the tagline to distinguish what type of movie it is, which will help towards attracting your target audience. Overall, from this I have a very clear idea of what I now should look to include (i.e. enigma codes, themes of movie etc) when creating our tagline, and I feel much more comfortable and prepared to create a very good one now due to my analysis and research on taglines for horror movies.

Planning for production - Last lessons discussions and planning

Script for the movie 'Final Destination'

In Thursday's lesson we went further into our planning by again at first choosing to assign different jobs for us to do. Whilst I did some research on the tagline's used in horror movies, and did some planning what tagline we could use for The Examined, John continued his work on designing the films poster and Morgan started to begin doing some work on writing up the script of the trailer. In the second part of the lesson however, we felt it would be better if we all came together and collectively worked on the script of the trailer, in which we used our synopsis and storyboard to help guide us. From looking at some of our script already, it is clear to me how much I have progressed from the research task, as even on the script we have added in many elements of things learned in the research task, like Burton's Genre Theory for example, where we have made sure we've included all six elements of genre in the script, to make sure our trailer can instinctively be recognized by our target audience as a horror trailer.

Planning for production - Film's Cool session 3 (Music Production)

For this weeks session of Film's Cool we not only had the pleasure of meeting musician Awate who previewed some of his music to use that we possibly be able to use in our trailer, we also had a Q & A session as part of film's club with Corinne Ladeinde who is a animator.

Corinne Ladeinde Q & A by stoliros

As part of our Q & A session with Corinne Ladeine we were shown a short movie of a animation she had recently created and had previously previewed in the London Film Festival. However, what I found most intriguing about this Q & A session was her comments on the importance of having a narrative structure to your movie/ trailer. She stressed that this was one of the, if not the most important part, of making any successful movie and so a good narrative structure is essential. This made me think back to the work we previously done on Todorov's theory of narrative, and the ways in which we should look to include his theory and use it as a basis for the narrative structure of our movie in order to enhance the story and make it even better.

The second part of Film's Cool was a seperate session with musician Awate who allowed us to listen and even have the choice of using some of his music in our trailers. Listening to his music I realized how essential music is in a trailer to set a certain tone, something I researched but never fully understood until now in my research on multimodal texts, and also to reflect the themes of your movie. For example our movie is based around school life and targeted at a young audience, so therefore the use of Awate's urban music would fit in very well with the themes of our movie.

Planning for production - making of the production company logo

What I first of all did was open up adobe photoshop where I opened up a new document and selected the 'International paper' page size so i could access an A4 sized document.

I then got a free image of an eye (due the fact our production company is called 'the eye productions') from google and copied it to photoshop so I could begin to edit it.

I then selected on 'layer' and then 'blending options' so I could begin to edit the image to give it a more shocking and better horror apeal so it could appeal to our film even more.

I first of all reduced the opacity level of the image to 49% to create a distant and unusual look/ feeling to the image.

I then maximized the opacity level of the drop shadow at a 120 degree angle, and then reduced the distance, spread and size of the drop shadow. This is what created the 'fuzzy' effect of the image which I believe adds to the grotesque nature of the image.

I then added a inner shadow to the image by decreasing the distance of the shadow and also increasing the choke and size of the shadow to create a close and entrapped look/ feel to the image which reflects the conventions of horror.

I then believed it necessary to create a outer glow to the logo to make it stand out more to audiences. This was done by maximizing the opacity and noise level of the glow, whilst slightly increasing the spread and maximizing the size of the glow. I also made sure I maximized the jitter level of the logo.

After I had finished editing the blending options of the image. I then decided to edit the color of the image even more by clicking on image and then adjustments and then black & white in order to change the color of the image to black and grey. I chose these two colors particularly because I believe they connote themes of doom and death often found in horror films.

The final thing I did was edit the Hue/ Saturation of the image as I felt to really emphasize our movies themes and the genre of the film, the image of the eye should stand out more.

As a result of all that, we came out with this image as our logo which I feel is really successful in its representation of the themes of our movie and genre of the film. As learnt in the trailer analysis film, the film production logo should indicate what your film is about, something I think this logo does very well.

Planning for production - Initial design of the logo of the production company

This is the initial design I had for the logo of our production company. As you can see we have tried to highlight the theme of horror through this by creating a disturbing image of a hand coming out of the eye. The use of an eye, also reaffirms are themes of cheating as it creates the feeling that you cannot hide the fact you have been cheating as a higher power (e.g. God) can see everything and so will punish you for your sins. Overall I think that this logo represents our movie effectively, similarly to the way that Warner Bros creates the image of the logo to fit in with the themes of that particular movie, something we learned is effective in the trailer analysis task. As a result i feel that this logo is going to make our marketing campaign even more effective.

What I learnt from the 'Representation of women in horror movies task'

From this task I have not only learnt a new theory, that being Mulvey's "male gaze" theory, I have also learnt the different ways women are portrayed and represented in horror movies. From my analysis on this it is clear that whilst women are portrayed as weak and vulnerable and there seems to be a focus on their sexuality, due to the fact we are seeing the movie from the eyes of a man meaning that the common stereotypical images of women are then applies, because of the fact the movie is a 21st century movie stereotypes also differ quite a lot presented new representations of women as being dominant and powerful. Because of this when characterizing the female characters in my movie, me and my group are going to have think carefully about whether we are going to try and adhere to Mulvey's theory, by presenting the women in our movie as stereotypically weak, vulnerable and desired as we are seeing it through the eyes of a man, or if we are going to challenge this by presenting a different view of women perhaps not focused on your typical horror movie. This task as a result, has been very beneficial in helping us to see different ways in which we can characterize our characters.

Representation of Women in A Horror Trailer of Your Choice

In my last post I talked about Mulvey's "male gaze" theory in which it is believed that woman are made subjects in films and so seen as a object of desire through the presentation of their sexuality to appeal to a male audience.

However what I will no do is judge whether her theory works by analyzing a trailer with focus on how women are represented.

Mulvey

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Below is the full trailer for 'Filth To Ashes, Flesh To Dust'

Research for production - Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze Theory'

Laura Mulvey's male gaze, a theory first created in the 1970s, suggests that woman are subjective to a "gaze" i.e. (point of view shot) from a males perspective. Laura Mulvey has implied that similar to Freuds theory, in which he believed films take people as objects and subject them to a controlling and curious gaze, that woman are made subject to this same look but instead exploited by their sexuality.

Here is a breakdown of her theory:

• Her theory suggests that the camera adopts a male point of view to appeal to a presumed male audience
• This is highlighted by the movement of a camera over a woman's body, which therefore focuses on the sexuality of females to appeal to male audiences
• It is also argued that the majority of the main characters are male so the that male audiences can relate to their viewing of woman as being passive
• There is no such thing as a female gaze and so female audiences are made to identify with the male gaze and so see through the male's eyes

However there are many ways in which this theory can be challenged. For example:

• This theory was made in the 1970s and so highlights the traditional view of women, something that has very much changed in modern society
• Not all central characters in movies are male 

Planning for production - Film's Cool session 2 (Storyboard)

As I said last week, we had the privilege of being able to work with professional scriptwriter Jesse O'Mahoney, who's written scripts for successful television programs such as Sky 1's 'Dream Team', who gave us a tremendous amount of help in creating a idea for our film and without his contribution I feel we might not have advanced to such a stage in our planing right now.

However, we were once again blessed as this past week we not only had Jesse O'Mahoney back to help us, we also had professional scriptwriter/ producer Ben Harris and also the head of media and film studies at LaSwap Kate. They were here this week to give us some help on creating our storyboards and helping us transfer our synopsis into a storyboard, as well as giving us a oppurtunity to ask them questions at the end of the session.

Again my group worked closely with Jesse O'Mahoney who gave us some very important tips on what we should do before creating the actual storyboard. He said that although we already had the synopsis written out we should make sure we knew exactly what was going to be in the film like settings, props, portrayal of the killing scenes etc. As with that knowledge it will become much easier to then draw out the storyboard, He also stressed the importance on imputing Todorov's narrative, that we recently learned about, into our trailer as it will give a nice structure that audiences can recognize to our trailer. These are all tips that we though deeply about and made sure we imputed in to our work when creating our storyboard the day after. So not only did this help with the creation of the storyboard, it also helped us gain a further grasp on what our film is actually about, and what specific details we are planning to include in it.

Q&A WITH BEN HARRIS AND JESSE O'MAHONEY by Film's Cool

Afterwards, towards the end of the session we were lucky enough to have a Q&A session with Jesse O'Mahoney and Ben Harris who answered any queries we had about how we are going to go about our work, and also about the film industry itself. This was beneficial in allowing us gain more of a insight into the film industry, as well as helping with the advancement of our work.

Planning for production - Choosing actors

There are going to be many considerations to take when choosing actors to play different roles in our film. First of all we have to be realistic when choosing who we can get to act in our film, it would be very unrealistic for us to attempt to get a established actor (E.G. Daniel Radcliffe) to take part so we are going to have to find people relatively unknown that fits the role we want them to play. That brings me on to my next point, when choosing actors we have to make sure they fit the role as there is no point in putting so much time into producing a good film if the actors we choose do not fit the role we want them to play. Lastly we have to ensure that we choose people that are able to work together well and get the job done well by showing professionalism as if not it might effect the end product. These, as well as others, are all considerations we're going to have to take when making the film as they can and will have a big impact on the outcome of the final product.

Planning for production - Protagonist and Stock Characters

This past week in class me and my group have had detailed discussions about who and what sort of characters we are going to include in our film, and whether they adhere or challenge conventions of characters in horror movies. To do this, we made sure we referred back to our research on the depiction of killers in horror movies/ killers in horror movies and also our research on stock characters in horror movies, to make sure we had a clear idea on what sort of conventions of these characters we should be looking to include and also to see where we could possibly challenge any of these conventions.

PROTAGONIST

From looking back on our research on killers in horror movies we found that the commonality between these killers were that they all seemed to be hampered by a troubled background, and hid their identity through the use of a mask or deformity. So looking at that we decided to adhere and challenge these conventions. We adhered to these conventions by creating a troubled background for our character in which she is mentally ill and suffers severely from bipolar and relies on her sister Kate (who commits suicide) for moral support, we did this as with most of the killers we looked at there seemed to be something that triggered off these killers rather than it being just random acts of murder, so we have decided to adheres to these conventions by likewise creating a troubled background for our killer in which the suicide of her sister triggers the murders in our film. However we have also challenged these conventions by not hiding the identity of our killer through some form of disguise (i.e. masks/ deformity), but although our killers identity is known we plan to still create a sense of enigma by making our killer the twin sister to the suicide girl but not revealing the fact they are sisters. This maintains the sense of enigma we are trying to create and in a way still ensures the identity of our killer is hidden without having to use some form of disguise. Also just the fact our killer is a woman challenges conventions of horror movies massively as it subverts this view of male dominance often seen in horror movies like Friday the 13th and Halloween, the only similar movie that also challenges conventions in this way is The Ring. This then perhaps hints at themes of a growing social disruption in society and the fact everyone has the ability to be dangerous.

STOCK CHARACTERS

The Final Girl - Sarah

Looking back on our research into Stock Characters, we've decided to adhere to the conventions of having a sole girl survivor at the end of the film and have made sure the characteristics of this character is very much similar to the characteristics normally found in The Final Girl. Like with The Final Girl in most horror films, although she may take part in the illicit activities of the group, she is is still a very much likable character who is very sincere and has been pressured into cheating and therefore audiences, whilst not liking the rest of the group, will warm to her as they will feel they can relate to her. Because of her good nature we plan to highlight the guilt she feels from cheating and so highlight our underlining message that cheating is wrong and doesn't ensure happiness.

Suicide Girl - Kate

Like with her twin sister, Kate is very much a outcast amongst teenagers and in someways society, which highlights themes of isolation often found in horror. We plan to highlight the themes of our movie through her as she is a very ambitious girl with big dreams, but doesn't seem to ever succeed perhaps due to the fact she is different and doesn't fit in. This plays on the themes of Ambition vs. Disaffection and Success vs. Failure of our film. Whilst also highlighting out emotion hook, something scriptwriter Jesse O'Mahoney stressed was important to have in a film, of cheating, deceit and fail of failure. Like with all horror movies there is a trigger that causes a chain reaction of bad events and so we plan to highlight the death of this innocent character as the trigger that causes the following chaos of events.

The Lad - Jack

As this is a British movie and not American, instead of creating 'the jock' character often seen in horror movies, we have created a British alternative 'the lad' so we could create the type of character that would appeal to a British audience. However Jack still does play on the conventions found in 'the jock' stock character as he is very trendy, popular and confident in his looks and ability, however like 'the jock' seen in American movies this confidence is instead replaced with cockiness and so the character will become disliked by the audience. Adhering to the portrayal of this character in horror movies, he does not survive and is one of the first to die in the film.

OTHER CHARACTERS

Other characters we have created who will play a prominent role in our movie are two more characters who are with the group cheating, one boy and one girl with the boy being very similar top Jack whilst the girl will resemble 'The Popular Girl often seen in horror movies. Both characters will adhere to conventions and therefore will die quite early in our film. Other characters will mostly consist of extras who will just help us to reenact the atmosphere of a school in our movie. This will include a teacher and students.

Planning for production - Ideas I had on the use of makeup/ props

Red food coloring can be used
to create fake blood

Whilst trying to think up some items we could use for props that will help portray the themes and emotional hook of our movie whilst also showing conventions of horror, I had a epiphany about a drama workshop I once had and on how they showed us how to us how and what to use to help show physical injuries. For example they introduced us to a fake type of blood that can be applied to the fact to help show physical pain and suffering, this will be useful as physical pain and how it is portrayed is a big element into distinguishing the genre of a film.We were also shown a type of paint and makeup we could use that can be used to help show deformity or some sort of physical damage to the face. This could come in handy because as seen through my research on killers in horror movies, disguise through deformity is a convention often used by directors to portray killers in movie, playing on fears of the unknown. Knowing this gives me and my group the advantage of being able to play on these conventions through the appearance of our killer due to these resources at hand.

Planning for production - Initial idea for 'The Examined' film poster

As well as researching on the different fonts we could use for the title of The Examined. John also researched and went on to even design a initial teaser of the movie poster of 'The Examined'. As you can see here we have tried to represent the themes of our movie through the poster. This has been done by using a exam desk to represent our target audience of young people who are still in education and is also relevant to the actual movie as much of it bases around a actual exam. Also the typography of the title suggests something about the genre as it looks to have been carved into the desk which represents not only vandalism which is something common among youths but also highlights the 'slasher' aspect of slasher horror. This is further emphasized by the use of red color which resembles blood dripping off the title which connotes death and pain, thus suggesting the nature of our film. The image of a knife stabbed into a heart further conveys this feeling of pain and death and also gore, themes usually associated with the horror genre.

The Examined' film poster on Prezi

To further highlight the effectiveness of this movie poster what I have done is, similarly to the work and research I done on movie posters, create a Prezi to highlight what it is exactly that this poster does which makes it effective and also represents the genre through its use of typography and iconography.

Planning for production - Initial idea on 'The Examined' movie title

Before sending John off to do his research on the design of different movie titles we could use, we at first as a group at down and drew a image of the type of title we at this point thought would be and best. To do this we looked back at the work we did analyzing the typography of different movie titles and what they represent to get a idea of what we should be looking for when choosing ours. As our movie bases around school life and is targeted at young people we thought we should use a graffiti style of font in red and black to represent the life and culture of young people in Britain, with the red and black connoting danger and death. This however is just a initial design and we plan on doing more research into film titles in order to get a clear view on what we should be looking for exactly.

Planning for production - Characterization of our characters (cheating methods)

To further characterize some of our characters me and Morgan, whilst John was analyzing the fonts for our movie title, researched ways in which are five characters cheating could cheat in a way that would resemble their characters. We go the inspiration for this from a clip that sir showed us in class of a man finding various ways to cheat in a test.

So what we done was looked up cheating methods on Google and decided on what methods to choose that most resembled the characteristics of the characters cheating in our movie (e.g. the trendy 'jack the lad' male character using the hat method and the guilt stricken final girl using the simple method of writing answers on her arm). Although they were only stock characters, we had previously learned from our research on Stock Characters and Burton's Genre Theory that they play a very significant part in a film and so must be made with real detail.

Planning for production - storyboard

This is a image of the first half of our storyboard, which due to the extensive planning we done for it as seen by our aerial shots and the received from industry professionals Ben Harris and Jesse O'Mahoney this past week, we have been able to do in real detail. If you look at the difference between this storyboard and the one I did for the prelim task you can see the massive difference in detail and quality, which is largely due to to the amount of planning and research we have been doing into the film industry, horror as a genre and on the making of trailers. All in all I feel much more confident about the making of our trailer now.

Planning for production - Aerial Shot 3 (Bathroom)

This is how we plan to set-up the scene where one of the characters (Kate) has committed suicide. We planned to do this scene in a river but decided instead to do it in a home as it links to themes commonly found in horror of intrusion of the domestic sphere. We plan to have the camera positioned at the far end of the room facing towards the bath where the camera will start of in a long-shot but slowly zoom into a close-up of the body, whilst tracking the movement of the character walking towards the body. This is because we want to create suspicion and fear which not only reflects the general themes of horror, but as learned from my exploration of movie trailers can create enigma.

Planning for production - Aerial Shot 2 (The Void)

Here is how we plan to set-up one of our latter shots that will take place in The Void (schools underground). Here we plan to use what we've learnt about horror and use what we learned about applying horror to a trailer to create a dark and frightening feeling in this shot. We plan to have the camera at the back of front of the void away from the character who will be on a chair in the middle, we plan to use very dark lighting at first as well as a long shot of the character in the middle that zooms into a close-up where four lights either side of the character will suddenly turn on combined with the diegetic noise of a scream. This has been done to create themes of suspicion, fear and mystery which as we have learned are normally associated with the genre.

Planning for production - storyboard (Aerial shot 1: Exam Hall)

Instead of going straight into drawing up our storyboard what we decided to do was to draw up three birds eye view pictures of three of the shots we plan to use in our storyboard, in these pictures we included images of what was actually going to be in that particular shots (props, camera position and shot type etc) and also the position of the characters in the shots. Our reason for doing this was because we felt that it would leave us better prepared when it came to filming, as seen with our prelim tasks not a lot of planning went into filming so we felt if we planned thoroughly this time the quality of our trailer would be much better.

Above is the birds-eye view drawing of one of the shots we plan to use in our movie which takes place in a exam hall and we plan to use at the beginning of our trailer. In the scene as seen in the drawing we plan to have a row of desks in the middle of the hall and one of our characters standing at the back of the hall whilst the other are seated at the desks. We have also chose to position our cameras at the front of the scene pointing towards the character at the back where we plan to use a high angled long shot which changes into a close-up. There is also a camera positioned at the right far hand corner of the image pointed towards the exit.

Planning for production - In Class...

Me and my group held a meeting so we could discuss and plan our trailer in even further detail as well giving out different jobs for us all to do. Whilst John went and analysed different fonts we could use for our movie title, me and Morgan worked together on creating some shots to put into the storyboard for our trailer that portrayed the story and themes of our movie. Also as one of the themes in our movie is cheating we came up with different ways in which are characters could cheat.

Planning for production - Target Audience Profile

Target audience profile

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Research for production - Analyzing a trailer in terms of Todorov

Tsvetan Todorov is a theorist from Bulgaria who is famous for suggesting that conventional narratives are structured in five stages.

Although many critics have regarded this theory as being accurate to a overwhelming amount of films produced, what I am going to do is try and apply Todorov's theory to the trailer I analyzed in the Trailer Analysis and make my own decision on whether Todorov's theory is correct in regards to that trailer.

From watching the trailer of Apollo 18 it is apparent that Todorov's theory has in fact been applied to the trailer in all aspects aside from one. 

1. This can be seen by the fact that there is a state of equilibrium at the start seen by the image of a spaceship taking off and the astronauts wondering around the moon which creates a sense of normality within the theme of the film.

2. However disruption is quickly shown to challenge this normality as it becomes apparent the astronauts are not alone which is told to audiences by the sudden change in the tone of the music and movement of the camera, as well as from the images on screen showing a disruption to the equilibrium. 

3. This disruption is then recognized by these two characters seen by there frightened reactions to the sudden change of the equilibrium. Although it isn't clear who caused the disruption these two characters recognition of it is clear due to the psychological and physical impact it has on them seen by the image of one of the characters infected as a result of this disruption.

4. A attempt to fix the disruption is then seen by the image of both of the characters wondering around the room with a hammer as a defensive weapon trying to figure out what has happened and more importantly why it is happening

However, as you can see the fifth stage of his theory is missing. The reason for this though is as it is a trailer with the ultimate goal of trying promote the film to audiences showing a resolution to the problem would mean having to reveal what happens and so leaves no sense of suspense for audiences meaning they are less likely now to want to come and see the film. What is apparent though is that in regards to Apollo 18 Todorov's theory has been (excluding the fifth stage) perfectly applied to.

HOW THIS WILL BENEFIT ME?


Learning and applying Todorov's theory of narrative will help me massively when it comes to creating my own trailer as the narrative structure and the way we present it will be a big part of creating the actual trailer. So learning this now has helped me see certain ways in which we would be able to structure our trailer, whether we want to stick completely to Todorov's theory or even challenge some elements of it. Because of this my next step will now be to see how I can adapt Todorov's theory to our own trailer and whether we can challenge it any sort of way.

Planning for production - List of Icons

From studying Burton’s Genre Theory I have come to learn the importance of listing certain icons in a film that reflect the distinctive features of the genre of that particular film. All icons must reflect the genre of the film as if it doesn’t it then just becomes unnecessary and irrelevant For example it wouldn’t make sense to use a rose which is a icon for a romantic film in slasher horror as it doesn’t fit in with the features of the genre. Only way this could make sense is if conventions are somehow being varied to fit in with the theme of the movie.

In terms of horror well known icons are usually the ones you notice the least as they are instead seen as being the icon of a particular character.

This includes:

The hockey masked used by Jason Vorhees in the Friday 13^th movies. I previously in another post talked about how this masks links to themes of fear of the unknown which is a common feature in horror movies. However the use of a mask or deformity to hide identity is now a feature used in many horror movies now (E.G. Scream, Chucky etc) and has become almost a symbol for the genre and as a result is a icon of the horror genre

The claws of Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on elm street films are not only used as a way of giving the character a distinctive feature, it is also an icon which has inspired the use of weapons to be used as icons. Because of this a kitchen knife with blood on it now becomes a distinctive indicator to the genre of the film being horror.

From looking at this and my research into Burton’s Genre Theory and Killers in Horror Movies it is now obvious what sort Icons I should be using that really symbolises the genre of the film. From this I and my group have created an initial list of icons for our movie which we hope to further expand on:

Amputated arm

Horror usually uses its gore as a distinctive feature of the genre and so the use of an amputated arm highlights this in abundance as the image of a cut off arm is very gory and so audiences immediately can link it to horror

Sliced throat

Likewise the image of a sliced throat is a very gory image and highlights intentionally inflicted pain. This level of violence is mostly seen in horror movies in comparison to other genres due to the level of violence and gore and so is a distinctive feature of the genre

Splattered blood on the floor

We’ve previously discussed in class how the image of blood is not a icon as it can be applied to a variety of genres (E.G. Medical dramas) however the image of blood splattered on the floor implies again of inflicted pain whilst also the presentation of it looking quite rough and unpleasant and so can be linked to horror

Knife with blood on it

This combines the two icons of blood and weapons together and so presents a very distinctive feature of horror movies. In a lot of horror movies the killer is often seen carrying a knife (or another household weapon) with blood on it as the blood represents danger and the psychotic nature of the character reinforced by the dangerous element of the weapon. This heightened sensed of danger created by this image highlights the dangerous aspect included in horror movies and so acts as a icon for the genre

HOWEVER….

When choosing and presenting our icons in our trailer WE MUST refer back to our research on film classifications as some of our icons (i.e. amputated arm) may be seen as unacceptable in a ‘15’ movie and so we have to think deeply about how we are going to present a amputated arm in a way that would ensure it fits within the guidelines for a ‘15’ rated movie.

Example of Icons in Horror Movies:

Research for production - film classifications and how it can affect our planning ideas

When creating a film part of what you have to think about is who your film is targeted at and as a result which film classification is most suitable for it. For example it would make no sense to have a film targeted at a young audience and then attempting to give it a rating of a '12'. Not only would the content of the film be deemed unacceptable for such a young audience and so is unlikely to be accepted by the BBFC, you would also be completely missing out on your target audience.

Because of this what I have decided to do is go on the British film classification website and look up what sort of content I should and shouldn't include in our film in order for it to get a '15' classification as our target audiences ages range from 15-25. Looking at the website I discovered a document which reveals the sort of content I should be including in a age '15' film and what I wasn't allowed to do, after looking at this I then realized that this will not have a big effect on my planning ideas as we now have to stick within a guideline.

Above is the guidelines explaining what sort of content a '15' film is allowed to include. Looking at this I can see that there is certain elements of our film that we must make sure sticks within these guidelines

This includes: 

• Making sure that the shot of the five teenagers threatening the suicide girl doesn't in any sort of way promote bullying or discrimination and so we must think of ways to do this without showing any endorsement of what is happening. 
• Any features of smoking in our movie must not represent it as being something good which encourages our audience to then go and smoke themselves. Instead we must highlight the consequences of this illicit behavior.
• Horror can be shown which is a good thing but we're going to have to do a detailed plan of our killer to make sure she doesn't come across as sadistic or in anyway sexualised.
• As we cannot dwell on the issue of the girl committing suicide we must plan in detail how the character dies and how we are going to present her death or if we plan not to show it at all.
• Violence is allowed to be strong and so the threat of the protagonist can be highlighted, however we aren't allowed to dwell on the violence or deaths of the victims and so we must plan i detail how each character will die and how we can limit the amount of gore used in each killing so it fits within the guidelines
• We can use strong language but it must be used within the context of the movie and mustn't be used repeatedly and so this will affect us when writing the script as we will have to think carefully about what sort of language and dialogue to include

Overall these film classifications mean that when planning from now on we have to constantly refer but to these guidelines when making any decision about what content to include in our film as we have to ensure that it fits within the guidelines we have been given. This will also effect the making of certain things like the script and the trailer for example where we are going to have to really detailed planning to make sure that all content featured in both fits within the guidelines we have been given.

Here are two videos, one explaining the content allowed in a 15 movie and the other explaining the effects these ratings can have on a movie and the reasons behind giving a movie a particular rating:

Example of a good USP: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I recently watched this movie and admired many elements about it which made it a truly unique horror film due to its USP's used. Firstly, the fact it was set in Victorian London provided a nice historical backing to the film and also revealed a bit about Victorian life to me that I wasn't aware of before. Also although it was very much a horror film, it was also a musical as well which completely challenges all normal conventions of horror films and is something I have never seen done in a horror film before and so completely stands out as a unique product. As well as this it featured star actors like Johnny Depp and Helena Bohan Carter which made it even more appealing.

This has made me see the importance of having a USP to your film and the impact it can have on drawing and attracting a bigger and wider audience. Because of this for me and my groups the film 'The Examine' I'm now thinking deeply about what the USP of our film can be and how we can highlight this in our film poster and trailer to attract in a bigger and wider range of audiences. Like with 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' I hope we can create good USP's for our film in order to make it unique so it stands out from other films of the same genre.

Planning for production - List of Locations

School Hall (where the exams will take place)

 

The use of a exam hall is used as it is the place where the majority of our young characters will be and also links directly to themes of Success vs. Failure as success and striving to succeed is primarily what a school represents. The fact we have students getting killed in school highlights the sense of failure, not only in amibiton but also in life. 


Underground of the school

The dark lighting alone highlights themes of isolation and fear that is used in horror movies. The fact the room is small very small and entrapped gives it a deranged sense of feeling that presents the danger and threat that the genre itself imposes. This has been done in movies like Saw in which the closed entrapped setting allows the threat of danger from the protagonist to be heightened, thus playing on themes of the actual genre.

Suicide Girls house

Representation of the location

From our research we discussed how a lot of horror movies are often set somewhere in the domestic sphere to highlight a sense of danger within your own home and surroundings, a theme often used in horror movies (E.G. Scream, Curfew, The Ring) to emphasize the element of danger.

School toilets

Representation of the location

Likewise with the suicide girls house, a school toilet is a very private domestic place. To challenge and play on conventions of breaking the domestic sphere that we previously discussed, we have chosen to have girls and boys smoking in the boys toilet as it represents the illicit behavior usually seen by teenagers in horror films and also we plan to have the killer breaking into the toilet to play on themes use in horror films of never being free from danger.

Normal Street

Representation of the location

Plan to use a deserted street on a (as seen in the picture above) rainy and mist day as it sets the mood of the film, the use of rain and mistiness giving the film a dark and uneasy feeling to it which in someways can be seen as a use of Pathetic Fallacy to set tone and mood, thus allowing us to emphasize the sense of fear and mystery of the film.

These are the initial list of locations that we plan to use for our film.  We plan to locate most of our trailer around the school as this is where the majority of the major events take place and is also something our target audience can identify with as they all are or at one point was at school. We plan to use the underground of the school as the setting is quite dark and entrapped and so links to themes of isolation and fear used in horror and so is a distinctive feature of the horror genre. The use of a normal street and characters houses creates feeling of normality vs. Surrealism often seen in horror movies. 

Planning for production - The Examined synopsis

Process of writing the synopsis

Writing the synopsis at first proved to be quite tricky as we felt that although we had story of our film, emotional hook and theme sorted out we hadn't really discussed any of the other important elements like setting and stock characters/ protagonists in any real depth to be able to write out a full synopsis.

What we then decided to do was get a big sheet of paper and decide on different places to set our film, what sort of characters should be included and whether they should adhere or challenge stock characters normally seen in horror films, something we learnt in our research about stock characters of horror movies, what characteristics our protagonist should have. We also referred back to our plot synopsis work and how we were able to apply Burton's Genre Theory to it so we had a idea of how to do it to our own synopsis.

As a result the plot synopsis of 'The Examined' was much easier to write as we had done the appropriate amount of planning in order to make the synopsis. This has made me see the importance of planning and positive effects it could have on your work, as a result I am now going to ensure that before we make any decisions we do the appropriate amount of planning and research first. 

This is the final copy of the synopsis that I was given responsibility by my group to come up with. Once I had made it what we discussed was that a a next step I should look do the same thing I done when we was looking at plot synopsis' and apply Burton's Genre Theory to the synopsis to make sure I have successfully expressed the genre of the film through the synopsis.

So what I did was I looked back at one of the synopsis' that I analyzed and applied Burton's Genre Theory to and looked at how the genre of horror was expressed through that movies synopsis. What I realized from this was not only was the movies synopsis expressing the genre of the film, it was also revealing some of the plot of the movie without giving too much away.

Key: 

Setting

Protagonist

Stock Characters

Themes

Plots/ Stock Situations

Icons

What I then done was analyzed my own synopsis and apply Burton's Genre Theory to it to see if I had also successfully expressed the genre of the film by including all of the six elements that make a horror movie and also if I had revealed some of the plot to the audience without giving too much away. On completion of doing this I found out that from comparing to the other synopsis I analyzed I had successfully been able to express the genre of the film with I have shown by color coding where the different elements are and that I had also successfully revealed some of the plot without giving too much away which I think is mainly due to the fact that I had learnt a lot from all of the research tasks and from planning the synopsis and so was very prepared when writing it out.

Planning for production - Two movies I feel in someways is similar to ours

In class me and my group had a discussion about what other horror films we felt shared some similarities to ours, in terms of themes, emotional hook, target audience and shared similar conventions of horror movies. Movies brought up included I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, however we felt the two films that were most similar to ours was Saw and Final Destination.
Here are the reasons why....

Saw:

• Like with our film 'The Examine' they both have the similar idea of putting people who have sinned through a test for their survival
• The way victims are made isolated and trapped is something we also want to do
• Saw's use of setting is similar to the idea we had for some of our setting

Final Destination:

• Both center around the idea of cheating and although in Final Destination it is about cheating death, both our film and Final Destination both still explore the idea of the consequences of cheating.
• Age of their target audience is very similar to ours (teenagers/ young adults)