Evaluation of Creep trailer : Research and Planning

The trailer begins with a point of view shot of a hall with escalators going down at the end, there is diegetic sound of a woman breathing heavily and tense non diegetic sound in the background. A handheld camera tracks in the footsteps of the heavy breathing woman who is moving towards the escalators. It fades to black as the production company appears on the screen for a few seconds, the heavy breathing of the woman goes on as this appears. It then fades back out from black to the handheld camera at the top of the stairs, it moves forward a little more before panning down to the bottom of the stairs the heavy breathing continues but the tense non diegetic sound changes from tense to a bit more eerie like a piece of metal being cut by an electric cutter. It then fades to a close up of a woman leaning on a wall with her eyes closed the diegetic sound is stopped but the eerie non diegetic sound continues. The woman slowly opens her eyes and looks behind her, the camera pans to the direction where the woman looks and the audience are aware of the location which is an underground tube station. A title “missed” appears on the screen with a dull pipeline like background, slowly moving to the left. Another title “the last train” appears in the same format. Once more another title “home?” appears in the same format the eerie non diegetic sound continues. The next shot is a mid shot of the woman walking with the camera tracking her. It quickly cuts to another mid shot of her trying to get out of the station but the gates are locked leaving her trapped in, she shouts “hello, hello” in fear but there is no reply. Another title “don’t worry” appears on the screen in the same style as the other titles. The next shot is of the inside of a blacked out train, the lighting in the trailer changes from full lit lighting from lights in the underground to little shadows of lights coming from reflections. The eerie non diegetic sound stays the same , there is diegetic sound of the woman who says “excuse me, shall I just sleep on the platform.” The camera cuts to a close up of the woman moving down the blacked out train, as she moves down the eerie non diegetic sound gets louder as the title “you’re not alone” appears on the screen using the same format as the other titles.

The next shot starts with a extreme close up of a mans hand covered in blood creeping onto the doors of the train, the eerie non diegetic sound continues and frontlit lighting is used for this shot. It quickly cuts to a low angle shot of the woman standing up in shock, backlit lighting is used for this shot. It then cuts back to a high angle of the blooded hand, but another hand crawls into the shot as a man tries to pull himself onto the train, the man has severe cuts all over his face. The man stares at the woman and gets pulled back off the train fading to black once he is fully pulled off. The eerie non diegetic sound ends and a scream from the woman ends the scene.

The next scene begins with a scream and a high angle of the woman running away from the train, It then fades to an extreme close up of a rat walking on a train track. There is a special editing technique it flashes the same shot twice. There is dimmed lighting and the tense non diegetic sound is slowly building up. It fades to a low angle shot of an open door of a chamber, there is dimmed backlit lighting and the tense non diegtic sound is getting louder. It then fades to a mid shot of a person holding a torch, there is backlit lighting so a shadowy figure appears making the person mysterious. The double flash technique is also used. The next shot is a long shot of the underground train track tunnel the double flash technique is also used for this shot. The tense non diegetic sound also keeps getting louder. It fades to the next shot which is of a man walking up and down a train furiously holding a weapon in his hand, the tense non diegetic sound increases as there is also diegetic sound of a man screaming. Lighting from the train is used. There is a high angle close up of the man standing and looking around the train as he hears something on top of the train getting closer. The camera zooms further into the mans face as the noise gets louder, the mans facial expression shows he is very scared. The man shouts in fear “Is someone here.”

There are two quick shots of torches shining on a wall, the tense non diegetic sound continues into the next shot which is of the woman running and the build up of the non diegetic sound ends and the montage begins. There is mainly dimmed backlit lighting in every shot in the montage, there are mainly shots of people running away, crawling away, screaming, hiding, a few shots of shadows of the torturer and weapons getting scraped against walls. Every shot is very quick and fast paced editing is used for the montage. There is also up beat tense non diegetic sound through out the montage. As the montage ends the tense non diegetic sound quietens and there is a close up of the woman crouching down holding a torch, she points the torch to her face and turns it off and the title “Creep” appears on the screen.

The final shot is of a toy playing and instrument with diegetic sound of the woman crying and crawling away whilst been followed by a man holding a knife. There is only non diegetic sound being played trough out the final scene.


How the trailer for the film creep has used the theories that I have learnt.

Tzvetan Todorov
Everything does start at equilibrium as she is just trying to get home, the disruption to this event is by the woman missing the last train and getting trapped at the station. The woman realises she is trapped but cannot get out. The attempt to try and get out she causes and attraction of the killer.


Vladimir Propps

There is definitely a villain in the trailer which is the killer, the woman may be classed as a hero or false hero depending on whether she survives or not and as we saw in the trailer there is definitely a helper.


The trailer for creep does follow Claude Levi Strauss’ theory as the is a good and bad, the woman being good she is just trying to get home and the torturer trying to stop her from getting home.


Rolande Barthes theory is also followed as teaser trailers always leave some parts mysterious for the audience to try and solve, before the actual film comes out.


The creep trailer follows most parts of each theory, therefore following a conventional storyline.

Storyboarding for film trailer : Research and Planning

As all film makers do, i have made a storyboard for our horror teaser trailer. This was a basic storyline that our trailer followed, but as most film makers adjustments were made to the storyline as filming proceeded.

Planning and Preparation

Andy and Hannah: Your contributions have been critical and you have shown how this piece has come together. Try to include time lines and show how you have set targets for yourselves to improve your grades further. Include your presentation to class and analyse that too. Well done

16/20 Level 4

Ross and Jinesh: You have made some good contributions to your page and I can see how you have been involved with planning. You were involved in this production from the onset, but this blog is largely dominated by Andy and Hannah. Try to comment on all of the parts of the planning process that you can and comment on the posts from the others if you need to. Some more analysis of trailers and how they attract their target audiences will do your cause favours.

13/20 Level 3

Filming Finished

We have finally completed all of the filming we have needed to do. We over run a little bit but this couldn't be helped due to weather conditions and unforeseen events. All we have to do now is edit all of footage we got and add music and it'll be finished.

Theories : Research and Planning

Recently in the other part of our course we have been learning about theorists believes about narrative. These theorists are Tzvetan Todorov, Vladimir Propp, Claude Levi Strauss and Rolande Barthes.

Tzvetan Todorovs theory is that there are five stages to a narrative which is that:

• Everything starts at equilibrium.
• A disruption of this event by an event.
• A realisation that a disruption.
• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
• A restoration of equilibrium - which may be a new equilibrium.

Vladimir Propps theory is that every film has 8 different character types which are:

• The hero, who is on the quest (search).
• The villain, who opposes the hero.
• The donor, who helps the hero by giving them a magic tool.
• The dispatcher, who starts the hero on his way.
• The false hero, who tempts the hero away from his quest.
• The helper, who helps the hero.
• The princess, who is the reward for the hero.
• Her father, who rewards the hero for his efforts.

Claude Levi Strauss' mainly focused on opposites (binary oppositions) - night/day, good/bad, light/dark. He noticed that these oppositions tended to structure texts such as stories, plays and films as well.

Rolande Barthes was interested in concepts such as negotiated meaning between institution and audience. The most well known of Barthes' codes is probably the enigma code. In its most basic form, it is the hook or mystery to be resolved for an audience.

These are the theories we have been taught and i am going to be evaluating a few more horror teaser trailers and find out how they use these theories, after i have done this i can relate this to our teaser trailer and try improving the trailer using these theories.

How we came up with our title : Research and Planning

The name we have decided to use for are film is Welcome to the Neighbourhood. The reason why we have chosen this title is that we researched into horror genre films and found that most films are either one word titles such as, Halloween, Scream, Physco etc, or they are short sentenced titles such as, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The last house on the Left and Night of the Living Dead.

We realised that the short sentenced title gave the audience a basic idea of the storyline, taking The last house on the left as an exampe, the audience will know straight away that the fim is going to be something about a haunted isolated house on the left.

We found it difficult to come up with a single word title that can sum up our film, so decided to go for a short sentenced title, as you can tell from our title Welcome to the Neighbourhood, the film is going to be something about someone moving to a new neighbourhood.

The stepfather 2009& 1987 including posters

Film remake trailers

The Stepfather (2009)

It beings with a couple in a car pulling up to a house. The couple are early 20’s and seem to show being together. The girl is driving giving the boy to pause and look at the house showing importance of being his house or a new place. There is diagetic sound of dialogue and the car in shot as well as non diagetic music over the background giving the genre a feel of a happy relaxed tone. When arriving at the house they go to the garden were a surprise party is held. There are bright colours and people smiling giving the vibe of a happy place.
When meeting the boy’s mother’s boyfriend the shot is held on the handshake. This shows importance because it is held for a few seconds where as the other shots are much quicker. The shots also slow down when the ‘Stepfather’ is talking to him.
There is a fading transition to another scene were his new father figure is giving his mother flowers. Non diagetic dialogue is shown over the top giving a brief description of what is happening. When the father and son are at a bar/ restaurant the father is talking about building the family back together showing a disaster in the family. They are in quite a dark room showing mystery. They toast but pausing when the son corrects him saying step father. It pauses on this showing tension.

There is a fading out transition showing time passing. It then goes on to the son questioning weather other people like this new step father and they seem to really like him. They show clips of them playing games and watching television showing a happy side to what they see. When the step father is taking to the son again it shows it outside making it dark showing danger.

It then goes to a swimming pool with the son swimming. It is shown from a high angle shot by being under the water. This shows power. The music changes to be more puzzling and eerie. There then is a story cropping up about Americas most wanted with a ‘similar’ being of him. The family laugh it off except for the son who seems very creeped out by this. He investigates by going on the Internet. The music becomes deep and scary. It zooms up on picture showing a clearer viewing again with very loud deep music. After there is a montage of clips all together showing police signs and a scary face. Again montage happens about the neighbour who came to tell them about the most wanted but shown in black and white to show the past.
Fading transitions happens again showing the stepfather in a much violent side. As the trailer goes on it becomes more gloomy and sincere giving the audience a feel of anxious, fear and worry. It keeps the audience on the edge of there seat.



2009 Poster







The poster of the recent film the stepfather 2009, shows a man gripping a red and white tie against a black background. The red and white tie could represent the balance between life and death meaning the red being the blood/ death and the white being the good/life. The gripped hands show a ring on the wedding ring finger showing married. This gives meaning to the name of the title. The red colour of the writing at the bottom shows a striking picture against the dark background. Red is shown as a colour of blood and horror.






The Stepfather 1987

The trailer begins with ‘The Stepfather’ in a deep red writing representing blood. The first film shot is a man wiping a fogged up mirror with his hand. The man is skinny with facial hair. There is a sharp tone over the top making it feel like some suspense. There is a Non diagetic voice over the top which then turns into diagetic when the next shot comes up with two men talking about a man who is on the loose. One of the men is represented as a police officer. This is because of the suit and police car he is leaning up against showing domination to the object. It then changes to a man in a suit looking at himself.



It then changes scene to a town, which seems to be a happy town. You can tell by this from having birds singing and children playing. It pans in to a families garden, they are having party. The man has his arm around a lady and she is smiling. This gives the impression of a happy well balanced family.
The music is eeary and spooky yet the scene is happy making the atmosphere unsettling. In between shots there is a man writing something on a mirror from the condensation. It says who am i here?

The music pace is more up tempo making it feel like its action packed. The shots are filmed in dark places. Knifes are put out on a table and when this happens there is a ambient sound of them clashing together. This resembles that its important in later in the trailer. Then at the end there is a smash of glass. This again is made ambient so it stands out.
It ends with the title the stepfather.








This film trailer poster shows a man looking in to a mirror but clearly seeing another male. On the fogged up mirror it has the writing Who am i here? showing an unknown clue to who the person actually is and who they are. Again red against black colour shows death and even murder. The mirror writing is the same as in the trailer also. Generic conventions of it being a horror movie are firstly the red writing. Secondly the stare from the mirror is unnerving. Finally also that the poster has an unsettling feel by having the quote at the bottom making you feel like what will happen.

Genre of our film

We have looked at many different aspects of our film including the genre. Every film has a genre or a number of genres, which would make it postmodern. Our film would come under the Horror genre for many reasons.

Iconography is everything to with the props and the costumes. In a traditional horror film you would expect things such as knives, Chainsaws, hooded/ masked characters, heavy use of make up and maybe guns. In the trailer which we are creating you will see use of knives and hooded characters. Style is also included in genre, which basically means the way it is filmed and the way you will see it on screen. Typical things you can expect in a horror film would be Point Of View shots, hand-held camera shots, Diegetic sound of screaming and quick transitions of shots. In ours you will definitely fast paced transitions as this is the editing technique we are going to use in the montage part of the trailer.

The setting of any film can help to determine the genre of a film. It places the characters in their surroundings and helps the film be more realistic. Typical settings used in horror films would be abandoned houses, woods and outdoor places. In our trailer we shall be using the traditional house location which people watching can place themselves in. This is one way which we are going to target our audience by making them feel like it could happen to them. Typical narrative you would expect would be fast paced scary scenes, a hero saving the day or everyone ends up dead. In our film our narrative will be a mix of scary scenes mixed with the couple being terrorized.

The usual stereotypes that you would see in horror film would be a ' dumb ' blonde making silly annoying mistakes and ending up being killed. Or the killer or villain is portrayed as heartless and ugly. In ours you will see that the woman will be vulnerable and that the man may become the hero and save her. This is similar to universal ideas and themes and you would expect to see people being terrrorized and bein very scared of their surroundings.

Brief Synopsis of the whole film - Research and Planning

A couple move into a new house because the male has a new job. The female doesn't want to move into the new house because of not knowing anyone and the place isn't like her own house previously. This results in the couple having a argument.

In the house on the first night they hear a smash in the garden on the first night which wakes them both. This terrifies the couple.
As the week goes on more freaky things happen such as wind chime moving on a non windy day, footsteps,phone ringing then hanging up, doors opening and closing and voices. This makes the couple feel that there not alone in this deserted street.

The male killer comes into shot in the film during chasing scenes, killing scenes and in backgrounds.

In our trailer we show it fast pace to show lots of action scenes happening at the same time. This is also called Montage.

As it continues it gets scaryer making the audience jump and on the edge of the seats to what will happen next. In the end they both die but will leave on a cliffhanger at the end maybe showing a sequel to the film.

Poll for fonts. - Research and Planning

Vote for your favourite fonts here. There types are shown below.

Whats Your Favourite Font?

Viner Hand ITC

SimSun

Segoe Script

Pristina

Paprus

earrings

Possible fonts

Fonts that we may include for our film are the following... choose your favouirte.

The above font is Viner Hand ITC. Vote for this if its your favourite!

If you like this one shown above best vote for SimSun!







The above is called Segoe Script. Vote for this if its your favourite!





The font shown above is called Pristina. If this is your favourite vote for Pristina!





The above is called Paprus. If you like this one vote for this one.


If you think there are any fonts better than the ones all ready shown leave your comments and we will have a look at them. Thanks. The Poll will be shown above.!

Production Companys

I have been looking at production company logos to that we can get inspiration for our own film. I am going to compare the logos between two very popular and well known company's. These are Columbia productions and paramount pictures.

When looking at these two pictures they both have similar and different comparisons. The similar things are they are both shown in the clouds. This may mean above all the rest (meaning above all other production companys). They both show unusual pictures. In columbia tthey show a flying horse and women that to be represents the human being of the statue of liberty. Paramount shows a mountain in the sky based on the mountain Ben Stack. The logo is a live action logo meaning there is interaction within the picture, in this case you zoom out of the picture following the stars and the stars also move round until you zoom out till the frame size of the picture above. Then paramount flows in aswell after you are fully zoomed out. The logo originally had twenty-four stars, as a tribute to the then current system of contracts for actors. 1974 the logo was simplified, adopting the design of the then-current television version, and the number of stars was changed to twenty-two; this version of the logo is still in use as Paramount's current print logo.

Columbia Trista Entertainment is an animation that starts with a bright light, which zooms out to reveal the torch and then the lady.

Major diffrences include obviously the people/objects included. The music included is also diffrent.

Music

I have managed to locate some download free music for our film. We are going to upload them to the other computer next lesson when we have the USB card.
The music consists of a glass smash, thunder, windchime, knife sharperning, footsteps, heartbeat, breath and background sounds.

Things we also need to do is find a production companys logo so the trailer will look more realistic. This can be paramount, lions gate or we can design one ourselves. This is something that we will have to look in to.

Shots needed - Research and Planning

After the weekend our group filmed more on Friday and Saturday.
We make some more unique shots for the montage and also filmed a couple of extra bits and pieces.

In the Adobe software we have worked out how to lighten the shots so now we will not have to re film the much darker shots. This happened because the camera shots come out a lot lighter than on screen.

The shots we still need to film are...
1. Glass Smash
2. Conversation
3. Sale Sign
4. Alternative Establishing Shot.

We will complete this some time this week.