Influences on our film production

There have been many influences and inspiration, which has aided us into making our theatrical trailer in this certain way. Through extensive research involving analysing trailers from various genres, watching horror films, seeing behind the scene exclusives, we have decided  that our theatrical trailer was going to be a horror. this research phase was one of the important elements into directing what path our film trailer should go.

The concept of our idea; a group of friends within a wood, camping, came from many influences primarily from horror films. Friday 13th is one of the main influences due to the appearance of the antagonist wearing a gas mask and the primary location of where the film is set, in a wood. We develop this idea by making the antagonist more relatable and realistic, by the use of mise en scene, through clothes. We achieved this by using black hoodies, and trousers, which connotes to evil and death, but using such an everyday piece of clothing makes the audience feel as it could be anyone. We decided our antagonist should wear a gas mask similar to the one used in 'Friday 13th', as it hides their identity which would create an enigma but also add the scare factor for the audience as they do not who it is behind the mask. When using this gas mask we would add diegetic music of  someone heavily breathing, which could become the iconic sound for our film, as when you hear it, you know the antagonist is around. We decided to use a location similar to 'Friday 13th' film as the woods is also very relatable; therefore would make the audience feel frightened whenever they go into a forest or wood after seeing this film. We also chose a wood as there lots of scary places which we could film, which we discovered through our research and planing stage.
Another influence was the film 'The Strangers', which is where three antagonist victimise a young couple. We used the idea of having three antagonists as it creates a sense of no way out, so 'unescapable'. It also means that we could use different masks for each antagonist meaning they have their own identity, which could possibly link to the type of weapon they use as well. Have numerous numbers of antagonists would create an eerie atmosphere as they could come across as a family- scary. This film, 'The Strangers', also builds lots of tension by using many meduim and long shots, with the antagonist's hiding in the background. We have decided to use a similar technique as it would make the audience want the protagonist to look behind them, therefore making them feel on edge and unnerved.
Our protagonist's was inspired by horror films such as 'The Cabin in the Woods' and 'Scream'. This is because both of these films involve using a group of protagonist's which are getting hunted down the murderous antagonists. Having a large group of protagonists would enable there to be lot of suspense and tension due to many murders occurring; which follows the conventions of a horror film. Some of the protagonists also wore white clothing within these films, which connotes to innocence and purity. This inspired us to have some of our protagonist's within the film trailer to wear white as it would make the audience sympathise with the characters. These films also have mixed gender groups, which we decided to do aswell. This is because it would make it more realistic and relatable as a group of friends does not always involve just boys or just girls. It also makes it relatable as both male and female can relate to both gender of characters. 

Font research- Finding the perfect one

Font for a a film is important as when the film becomes more recognisable, the font would therefore provide identity to the film. For example, white block writing, is stereotypically associated with the film 'Scream'. This means that it is vital for us to find a typeface which is ideal for our horror trailer, and therefore be placed on magazines and poster, which we are also manufacturing. From browsing various internet websites and images, we final found the ideal one which we like to pursue into using for our titles. These are other ones were other fonts which we also found, which would give you an insight of our thought process into choosing the ideal one.

 This is an example of what we could have used, which this font is called 'Norse Regular'. As you can see it is long and narrow font, which it is in capital letters. We automatically decided that the title should be in capitals as it would follow the conventions of a horror genre trailer. However, this font to me suggests a roman like theme, due to the ends of the letters being thicker than the rest of the lettering. The 'R' definitely supports my interpretation as they used to write by only using lines. This therefore would not be ideal for our trailer as we do not want to confuse our target audience on what genre our film is. Also this would probably also disrupt the continuity of the trailer, poster and magazine as they would contrast from each other too much.

 This font is called 'PWJazzy Font' of which we found on another website. This can come across in different ways; such as it could be used for a romantic film as its like someone's written this font by hand. On the other hand, if we edited this, by adding slight texture within the lettering, it could come acriss as if someone scribbled it rapidly. This would therefore suggest panic or even someone trying to escape, which would be ideal for our horror trailer. However, this font would be even better if it was bolder so it would stand out from the background of shots as the narrowness of the lettering could blend in with sections of the font, especially as there will be shots within woods.

This third typeface suggests a sci fi genre, due to the right angled corners and boldness of the lettering. This links to sci fi as you can imagine seeing this on a wall of a alien spaceship, which you have probably seen in films. The feature which I like about this font is the scratched away texture which suggests that something has been trying to scratch it away or even that its worn away. However, the first letter is the only small letter of which I dislike as all titles should start with a capital letter, or all the letter in the same case.
Typeface 4 automatically suggests a genre of romance due to the swirly writing as you can through the letter 'E'. This could cause confusion with the audience, therefore disrupting the trailer we spent a long time to produce. Although it would not be effective for our trailer it would better for film genre such as romance or rom-com's. A positive to this font is that the boldness would allow it to stand out from the background therefore easy t read and see.

This typeface is called 'Yu Mincho Demibold', and is a simplistic font. Although simplistic, it is also effective as we could edit it to create an eerie atmosphere. Due to the simplistic feature of this font it, it is ideal to undergo editing, as we could combine the texture element from typeface 3.
This is the final typeface which we kept coming across when searching for horror fonts. As you can see this is a very stereotypically font for halloween, due to the dripping effect which connotes to blood and gore. This is not effective as it would make our film trailer, magazine and poster come across tacky and immature, due to this dripping effect. This therefore would not be ideal for our products as we want to them to be professional and suitable for our target audience, 15- 24 year olds.
From this research, I believe the simplistic type face 4 is ideal for our production as we can easily edit the font into something more eerie, but still simplistic. See blog of producing our font, which will explain how we edit our font into our desirable image.

Font Research- Magazine puffs, sell lines and anchorage text

Font 1
This font, as you can see, is called 'Rosario' and it comes in four different formats. This gives us a variety of choice on which format to use for different features of the magazine, for example 'Rosario Italic' could be used for the anchorage text to display information, whereas the 'Rosario Bold' could be used for the sell lines of the magazine as the are bold therefore stand out form the magazine cover more. This font is also very simple and easy to read, which is a key feature as we want the audience can read it from
various distances. Due to the simplicity of the font, it would be associated with a range of film genres which could be present with on the cover.

Font 2
Automatically from looking a this, it reminds me of an old fashion court files font, which would confuse the audience as they would be expecting a lot of the cover to be based on our films and horror films. Also this font is very hard to read, especially if it an image was behind it, therefore not ideal for us to use it.

Font 3
'Blockhead Regular' gives has three different formats; regular, bold and fat. This, again, gives us an option of which ones to use. However, easy to read up close, if the magazine was on the shelf, it would be rather hard to read therefore not effective or efficient to use for a magazine cover. The rounded edges and techno like design of the font connotes to sci fi like atmosphere, of which we would prefer to have a eerie/ horror sense due to the magazine main image being our horror film, 'Betrayal'.

Font 4 
This font is simlar to font 1 due to the simplicity of the font. However, this font only has one type of format which doesn't give us much options, which is required due to the different features which on consist on magazine; puffs, anchorage text, sell lines etc. Although it does not give any options it is easy to read as the letters are spaced out evenly therefore clear. A suggestion would be mixing font 1 and font 4 together; however that would disrupt the continuity of the cover as from research of magazine, the font is all the same, except from the mast head of the magazine. Therefore this means that this font may not be ideal to use for our horror magazine cover.

 Font 5
This font is very effective as it creates a eerie like atmosphere of which is due to the bulb like ends of the font. This font also gives us two options; either regular or bold, which are the important types of formats as one can be used to attract the audience and the other would give more information about it. This is also similar to our font we used in our trailer, which could be an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage being that it would not disrupt the appearance of the magazine. On the other hand, using similar font of which the title of our film would be in, could make all the information seem as though it is only linked to the film. Therefore only attracting one type of target audience (horror fans), which would be good but adding small sell lines about other films would attract a even larger audience.

Font 6
These fonts are have more of a intricate design with complex patterns added on to the font. In my opinion, if this went onto our magazine, it would make it tacky and come across childish. This would mean completely missing who our target audience, meaning no one would buy the magazine due to contradicting images; having a horrifying image form our horror film, with tacky childish typefaces. Due to the tackiness and designs of cobwebs on these fonts, it would make our film magazine cover child-like and therefore not professional looking or effective.

Software Research

Software Research

This software research was also used to decide what software to use when doing our AS blog as well as what soft ware to use for our A2 blog. The type of software we use during the editing process is a vital part to achieve a high standard opening two minutes, as we need to understand the whole programme, from the cutting shots to the precise point to knowing how to arrange them. This is important so we can benefit from all the technology provided from the editing software.

Microsoft Movie Maker

This is an example of an editing software which we could use for producing our film. Movie maker is made by microsoft, which, as you know, a very well known company and is very user friendly as it should appeal to all ages interested within media and producing films. This software makes you be the editor, with no complicating buttons and techniques needed. Movie Maker also ensures that photos and videos are imported quickly and at the highest and clearest resolution, so the images are clear, avioding buffering and blurriness. It also enhances your movie by providing ready made themes and audios, which could be used for different genres of film and videos, which give us ideas of what kind of music we need and which would suit with the shots we take. Finally, once our movie is ready, we can share it online on Facebook, YouTube or other social networking and video sharing sites, and if neccessary we can send a link of our movie in an email so we can transfer our production to each other to do some editing and to make all our ideas come alive. There are many aspects of this software which may be ideal for producing our film such as the transitoin elements and havign ready made horror music if we needed it. However this software is fairly ammateur, meaning there isn't as much variety of transitions, sounds, cutting techniques etc, which could be a problem.

Adobe Premiere Elements 10

Another software which we could use for creating our film is a software called 'Adobe Premiere Elements 10', which from the title of it is made by 'Adobe'. Although this software is another editing software like Microsoft Movie Maker, this is software is aimed for making and creating videos and films, which is more of an advantage using this software. This software also gives you a more clearer timeline with audio and soundtracks below so you can line the shots and the music precisely together. It also has much more advance effects such as the stabilizer effect, which keeps shots still if they are shakey when they are not meant to be. This may benefit us as we want to make our opening two minutes as best as we can so a more advanced software would aid us for doing this, right? This may not be true as it makes the process a lot more complicated as there is more techniques you can use, meaning more complication. However this software includes a range of transitions, effects, cutting proceses etc, which would definitely benefit in producing our film.

Avid film editing software
This software is a very advance but effective piece of film editing software which is used broadly at universities and lower independent film institutions. This software allows you to explore and exploit your creativity as it provides a range of advanced editing tools and effects, allowing you to produce a high quality production.  The software provide power and precision within all work therefore would be ideal for our production. However, the only negative feature to this software is that it is extremely expensive; both for the full package or pay monthly. This therefore would mean it would be very hard to find the availability for this resource, making the other software more beneficial for us. Although we cannot get our hands on this software, in the future I would be looking to invest in software such as this, as it allows you show your creativity.

Software used

In the end we used this software as it was the most suitable software we could use and excess. To edit our clips together and to make our movie run smoothly we used the editing software called Adobe Premiere Elements 10. We decided on using this as one of our editing softwares because it is what many professionals use when they edit movies, this gives us the experience of a real movie editor and what they have to do to achieve what they achieve.

 

The effects on this movie editor are acceptable for our genre of movie because they able you to control how the lighting and sounds are e.g. the volume; because our movie is a horror we like to experiment with these things to create tension and fear when you are watching it, making it beneficial for us as editors. Some of the clips had unwanted scenery in them so we tried to figure out a way to remove it; cropping the clip the same way you crop an image was the best way. We explored the editing software to enable us to find the right tool to crop our clip, we managed to find one which brought us to realise how advanced this editing software really is.

Overall this is an ideal application to use to edit our film as it makes the finished project look professional and neat, it is also easy to use which is necessary because we are unexperienced movie editiors. The range of transitions, effects and sounds makes it fun to use. The only bad thing about this software is that they lack a choice of titles and fonts to create the theme for your project, because of this we decided to look at different editing software to create our titles and fonts. We thought that IMovie had a lot of possibilities for our movie as it lets you decide on many fonts and use ones your have downloaded from the internet etc.

Video Diary #2

Brief Storyboard Analysis

Storyboard analysis

This is our initial ideas which we have put into an animated storyboard.We haven't shown much about our choice of camera angles but we have recognized this and a variation will be used in our actual trailer.At the point of making the storyboard not all our ideas had been finished or discussed which means our soundtrack was not added to it however after finding the perfect piece we will be adding it to our edited trailer. We would also need to add title including actors name and some dramatic catch lines about the film and when its coming to the cinemas.Like most people our storyboard will not identically match our finished piece but we will  draw influence from it whilst we have film. This storyboard also gives us a guideline of what our trailer should look like, so during the filming stages, we would be able to follow it if necessary. 

'Betrayal' Storyboard

This animated storyboard provides a visual aid during the filming process. This allows us to follow the basic storyline of our trailer. However, due to it only being a storyboard, it does not mean we have to follow it exactly, therefore it is adaptable.