Creating National Warning Signs

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Why did we decide to create a warning sign?

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In order to give our horror trailer full effect and realism we decided to create a warning sign about the disease. We will have this flash up in a shot where the children are working on computers to give the effect that the warning was unexpected. This would create tension for the audience because they would be aware at how unready the characters in the film are.

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Why did we design it the way we did?

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We decided to use large capital letters to represent that the warning is official and associated with industrial, army like institutions that are conventionally associated with zombie pandemics. We used two versions of the warning sign and layered them over each other at a fast pace so that the warning sign would flash up at the children. This will make the scene more distressing for the audience and would show the panick that the characters are feeling. This effect will help to create more fear in the audience which is our main purpose of the horror trailer.

 

PANDEMIC: Naming our Horror Trailer

Since the very start of the production of our Horror Trailer we have pondered on what would be the most effective name to call it. We had to ensure that it gave relevant connotations to the zombie sub-genre of the film and that it was also suitable to the film’s theme.

Due to our Horror sub-genre being based around Zombie’s, gore and world alert, we needed a name that reflected danger and ‘infection’ so that it would fit the general theme that we wanted. In order to do this we searched for synoyms of words such as ‘infection’, ‘epidemic’ and ‘disease’ so that our film will sound interesting and leave the audience aware of the film but still curious about what the dilemma will be within the film.

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How has our research effected our planning?

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During our research stage using the theasurus website, we decided that we would only select titles with one word due to our previous research into horror films telling us that one word titles are more effective and common than any other titles.

Some examples of these successful films include:

 

After looking into successful films with one word titles, Melissa and I drew closer to a specific word that reinforced the facts from our research well.

The word that we chose was ‘ENDEMIC’ and its definition is as follows:

We thought that this word would be most suitable to our horror trailer because it refers to the possible disease that causes the problems in the entirety of the trailer. This is important because it highlights to our audience that an endemic of a disease will occur in the film which relates back to the conventions of Zombie horror films.

We also noticed that not all audiences are aware of the meaning of this word and are must more familiar with the word ‘epidemic’ which refers to the spread of a disease across a large widespread of people. This word on the other hand refers to disease on a small scale and once the audience are aware of this they will understand the isolation in which the characters would feel within the setting which would make them more scared for them later on in the trailer.

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Additional Research and drawing our final decisions

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Later on in our research we also came across the word ‘Pandemic’ which we found had a similar meaning to the word epidemic. Due to us wanting to represent the disease as more widespread we decided that this word would be a better option for our horror film. With this in mind, we knew that by doing this we could incorporate news reports during the initial distruption stages of the trailer to show a variety of languages making the trailer more interesting and realistic.

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Typography

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After choosing the name of our film we began to look into possible typography that we could use for the title. To do this, we used a website called http://www.dafont.com/ which had a wide variety of fonts and styles that we could choose from. Throughout this process we thought that it would be best to relate our typogrpahy back to the theme of the film by focusing on fonts most associated with disease and lockdown during national disaster. We felt that this would be important in order for our audience to initially be shown what sort of film the trailer is representing.

Some of the fonts that we thought would work really well with our overall genre and theme are as follows:

We thought that the typography shown above would be the most effective choices to put into our horror trailer due to their link with the zombie horror genre. We will use the font that we choose in both our trailer and poster in order to maintain a continuity and familiarity with the audience and th

Horror Trailer Test Shots

The editing process within the film industry is one of the longest parts of the film production, therefore I have decided to create a short video to showcase some of the shots we have so far that may or may not be featured in our horror trailer. Many of these shots show the environment in which the trailer will be set in and give off an eary sort of atmoshphere.

The test shot video I have created is below:

After uploading the test shot video I noticed that the video had a very low render quality and the shots were not shown how they should have been. This is something that I will learn from and will need to address when uploading the final draft of our Horror Trailer. I feel that this task is a very important part of the production stage because it has allowed us to notify what areas within the editing stage we need to improve on when editing the final video.

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FILMING DAY 2

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Today we were able to sucessfully film the next few shots for our horror trailer. We were able to film a high quantity of important shots this time as we had all of the characters that would star in our horror trailer.

During the first hour of filming we spent our time filming the classroom shots. We did this because these are the main shots in our horror trailer so we needed to get these shots out of the way first. During this time we filmed the alert system shots as well as shots of the teacher and various students. We also focused on our four main actors and did a variety of individual shots and groups shots with them. We did these shots in the corridors before they go into the classroom to emphasise the time frames in which the narrative is going move.

We were quite fortunate to film our distruption shots in a classroom that was quite isolated and didn’t have any windows. This made the little light that did come through the windows appear eary which created a sense of solitude (which is a common theme in our horror trailer)

Horror Trailer Character Profiles

From previous research into horror trailer conventions and evaluation, I feel that in order for the most typical conventions to be followed in our horror trailer our characters must reflect features that would classify under Propps Character Theory. In order for my horror trailer to be successful, I must have an insightful understanding of each character so I can make each scene complement them which will in effect scare the audience more. To gain an understanding of my characters I have created profiles for each of them below:

PRINCESS

Name: Rhianna

Age: 15

Status: Year 11 student

Favourite Film/TV Programme: Gossip girl and Pretty Little Liars

Hobbies and Interests: She loves going shopping and going out to exciting things with her friends.

Personality: Rhianna is always caring towards her friends however sometimes is quite extroverted and therefore puts herself at risk in order for her to have fun. She doesn’t like being the centre of attention but will always put her friends in the spotlight. She thinks her friendship group is better than anyone elses in the school.

Relationships: she is single however has four best friends who she spends the majority of her time with. She has a mum and dad at home and as well as an older brother who she has a good relationship with.

 

PRINCESS

Name: Callum

Age: 15

Status: Year 11 student

Favourite Film: American Snyper and Saw

Hobbies and Interests: Callum likes to play football and go out with his friends. He often takes risks and does dangerous things whilst he is out with his friends.

Personality: Callum is quite intelligent however he hides it to avoid being made fun of by his friends. He cares about important issues on the news which he often talks about and he is a born leader. He is good at taking control in group tasks and stressful situations.

Relationships: Callum lives with his mum and has never met his dad. He is the oldest of 3 younger siblings who all love and care for him. His mum relies on him to do a lot for her due to her long shifts away from home.

 

PRINCESS

Name: Kimberly

Age: 16

Status: Year 11 Student

Favourite Film: Harry Potter and Once Upon A Time

Hobbies and Interests: Kimberly likes to read books and learn with her friends within school. She is interested in the news and is always organising events to promote and support charities for real world issues.

Personality: Kimberly is a very quite and reserved girl around people she doesn’t know however she is confident to talk to people about things she believes in such as preventing global warming and promoting world peace. She is very kind, however can sometimes be selfish in stressful situations and will go off on her own to avoid panic.

Relationships: Kimberly lives alone with her father and has no siblings. The only friends she has are Callum, Rhianna and Alessio. She enjoys spending time with herself.

 

PRINCESS

Name: Alessio

Age: 16

Status: Year 11 student

Favourite Film: Civil war and Guardians of the galaxy

Hobbies and Interests: Alessio loves watching action films and is a gamer; he plays everyday. He is very popular and goes out a lot with his friends but he also enjoys learning – especially ICT.

Personality: He is very loud nd outspoken but knows when he needs to focus on tasks. He doesn’t like people testing him and he hates people who dictate.

Relationships: Alessio has strict parents so compared to his friends, he doesn’t have a very close relationship to them. He has a girlfriend however she goes to a different school so they don’t get to see each other very much.

 

VILLAINS

Name(s): Zombies

Age/status: Mixture of teachers and students that will attempt to murder other students.

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FILMING DAY 1

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Today we began the filming for our Horror Film Trailer due to the weather being in a perfect foggy condition. The atmosphere outside was quite spooky and barron therefore we took advantage of this and filmed all of the main outdoor shots that we have outlined in our previous Shot Log post. We also took any additional shots that we thought would be effective in the trailer.

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 The Vlog

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Below is a short vlog that I created whilst we were filming our initial trailer shots:

Shot Log for Horror Trailer

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The Importance of a Shot Log

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We decided that before filming we should create our own shot logs to ensure that the fluidity of filming on shooting days is controlled and effective. We really wanted to make sure that we could use this plan to prevent us from needing extra time trying to find the right clips to go in particular places during the editing stage.

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Shot Log Key

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KEY:

ES – Establishing shot

CU – Close-up

LS – Long shot

MS – Mid-shot

ECU – Extreme close-up

PV – Point of view

SS – Side shot

OTS – Over the shoulder

‘-‘ – No shot

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Shot Log

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We will use this shot log as a working document on filming days and will tick off what shots we have taken and any other additional shots that we have added in. This way we can keep track of what we have to put into our trailer which will ensure that our time managment is excellent and on track.

Horror Trailer: Target Audience Profile

In order for me to create an effective horror film that will appeal to my wide target audience I must understand their likes and dislikes. This will ensure that I will constantly be referring back to what would draw my target audience in throughout the production process of my film.

My target audience will range from around 13+, therefore, I have created an example of an audience member that would watch my film using the social media website – facebook. I chose this online platform because many target age range would use this form of networking consistently to socialise and live their everyday lives.

My target audience profile is below:

As you can see above, this target audience member is young, loves the horror genre and enjoys watching films that play on your mind. Many of the things that are listed in the profile regarding films and interests show themes of isolation, moments of gore and themes of children.This girl would be appealed by our horror trailer due to the feeling of the ‘unknown’, isolation and the excitement of trying to escape due to her love of going out to places and adventuring.

Risk Assessment

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Why have we produced a Risk Assessment?

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It is important during the production of film that every aspect of planning is thought out carefully and thoughtfully. This is why I decided to do a risk assessment to accurately assess what possible risks may occur from or during the filming process of my Horror Movie Opening.

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Assessing the Risks for our Horror Trailer

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To represent my assessment I laid out all of the possible risks in a table and rated them at a high to low risk, explained what type of risk it was and how many people would be affected by it.

This method is shown below in my Risk Assessment: