Final costume- Mask prop

Mask Research

Having the right type of mask is vital to the storyline of the film which is lead us to researching in depth about costumes . Our film is based round a group of young teenagers who are camping in the woods for spring break; therefore we need to be realistic in our choices. Most recently the gas mask has been a very popular and effective choice of mask in films, for example, it was used in 'My Bloody Valentine'. This therefore means people may go against the idea as it may become to repetitive or stereotypical. However because our characters are teenagers ,their age group are generally aware of the new and upcoming horror/thriller films and because of this its pretty easy to get hold of a mask online for a reasonable price. Although our film is going to be scary, the antagonists are teenagers (however the trailer won't reveal this) so they are not going to be particularly organised or creative so will be easily influenced by films they have seen themselves. This means that the choice of a gas mask is a realistic option for a group of teenagers to choose, especially as it hides the identity of the antagonist. The main antagonists will be wearing this mask as it stands out more and its scarier. The dark colour means that the character will be more camouflaged at night and will help create a scary atmosphere. The black colour also connotes to evil, death, darkness, which all follows the conventions of the horror genre. Gas masks are well known for the creepy sound of breathing hence, this will become a big feature in the trailer as when you hear the noise you know he is around...

Our second choice of mask is the hockey mask, again this easy, assessable and cheap choice therefore it would make a perfect option for a group of teenagers. We were inspired to use this from the film 'Friday 13th' which 'Jason' the antagonist wore to hunt his prey and victims. The colour of it means that it will reflect light, which in some way makes it not as suitable choice because the antagonist will be more visible and easy to find, however a group of teenagers probably wouldn't think that through. Only having the eyes on show puts an emphasis on them and makes it seem even scarier as these will be the last eyes you see if caught. The breathing holes are pretty small so the sound of the person breathing will be quite loud and will give a scary effect. The two other antagonists will be wearing this mask. Having used two types of masks would create a sense that they are family which creates a unnerving atmosphere for the audience. However, as our plot twist is that the antagonist's are their friends, this would keep the audience on their seats until the very end. 

Film treatment- WMJC Productions

Film Treatment

This is our film treatment which gives an insight of what our theatrical trailer consists of. This film treatment is presented by our own institution 'WMJC Productions'.

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.