Our Trailer

Magazine Evaluation

We feel that the bold red title of our magazine ‘Fangoria’ is eye catching and stands out. I feel that the name of our magazine is attractive and shows the genre of the magazine. We feel that the word is very relevant to a magazine which would feature horror films. Our title also has blood coming off of the writing, this is also effective and targets the target audience of which a horror film would.

We like the way our barcode is in the bottom corner as it does not cover any of the images. The barcode is also good where it is as it does not stand out and distract from our images and text. This is important as it is not the focus point of the magazine. We also feel that the way we have put the barcode into a space which is a light colour- grey is good as it fits in with the colour more and does not stand out as much. Underneath the barcode we put the pice in both UK and US dollars. We done this as this magazine features over both in the UK and the USA. We believed it was good that we put the price here as it saves space on the magazine.

We believed that a strong image which takes up half of the whole magazine was good as it will be the focus point and catch peoples eye and they will pick it up. I feel this is effective as the girl in the picture looks scary with red eyes that stand out. Her hair is also a bit messed up around the edges like it is in the teaser trailer. She looks strong and fearless with unusual skin. We also put strong little pictures on the magazine, we believe these still stand out as they are very disturbing pictures and do not need to be big to be a selling point.

The background colour is grey allowing us to use bright colours so they would stand out. We believed this is good as it fits in with the horror theme. I feel this is effective as it gives an eery effect especially in the way that we have used red patches to make it look like blood. This we feel gives a horror effect.

We feel that the wording of the writing on our horror magazine is effective “sneak preview of this year’s top horror film. Contageon” as it shows that it has been said it is a top horror film. A top horror film means that it is good and also it is what people would want to see in a horror. This stands out as people will like to see horror films that make them scared and wondering what will happen next.

We also believed it would be good if we used the word ‘PLUS’ in bold capital writing. We thought this would be effective and will stand out to the viewers. As this will stand out people will read what it says and will see there has been interviews with the actors in the film. People who are interested in seeing the film will purchase this magazine as they will know the actors will be talking about the film making.

We believe that in the top right corner- ‘biggest ever issue!’ stands out as it is over the title of the magazine. We decided to put the colours of this dark as it does not need bright colours to stand out as it is leaning on a bright colour. Bright colours may have also taken the attention away from the pictures and other important information on that magazine. Strong words like ‘best ever’ makes the reader feel that it is limited and that the film is the best ever film that has been out in a long time.

Storyboard

Script of our Horror Teaser Trailer

Screenplay: Contageon

[1.1] COLLEGE GROUNDS- DAY

Camera dollies down onto college building, this is showing it is about college people

[1.2] IN BEVERS COLLEGE CORRIDOR- DAY

A shot of three girls walking casually down the corridor

[1.3] TRACKING SHOT OF COLLEGE AWARD- DAY

Shot of a college award to symbolize a normal college

[1.4] GIRLS WALKING DOWN THE CORRIDOR AT BEVERS COLLEGE- DAY

Girls continue to walk towards the camera casually like any normal college student would when walking to class

[1.5] SEARCHING THROUGH OLD PAPERS AND PICTURES- AFTERNOON

Overlapping shot of people frantically looking through old pictures and letters whilst zooming into words on the paper to show the audience what the teaser trailer is about

[1.6] IN BEVERS COLLEGE HALL-DAY

Close up of clock ticking, showing the time going by so quickly

[1.7] COLLEGE ARTICLE FOUND IN OLD BOOK IN BEVERS LIBRARY

Extreme close-up of a section of a newspaper article stating college students will never be alone

[1.8] AT HOME- EVENING

An extreme close up of Ellie, Ellie has been followed home by the spirit and is in danger, Ellie is scared with blood coming out of her eye

[1.9] AT HOME- EVENING

Close up of a Ellie’s legs with blood on walking towards a door which leads to the back garden

[2.0] AT HOME- EVENING

Ellie brings the newspaper article home, bringing the spirit to her house, Ellie is reading it and discovers people are berried underneath the college

[2.1] COLLETTE AT HOME- EVENING

Collette- another college girl who found the letters and pictures, is at home causally standing in her kitchen, she hears a loud bang on her window and gets scared

[2.2] AT HOME- EVENING

A spirit is banging on the window trying to get to Collette, Collette is in the reflection scared and does not know what to do

[2.3] DARK ROOM AT BEVERS COLLEGE- DAY

Ellie is hiding in the dark room a few days later as the spirits are after her, Ellie is trying to be quite as she does not want to be found, however she is very scared

[2.4] AT HOME IN BEDROOM- EVENING

Collette is in bed when she wakes up and is getting attacked by a spirt on top of her trying to strangle her

[2.5] HOME- EVENING

Collette is holding a letter she found and is shaking franticly as she finds out why these spirits are after her

[2.6] HOME IN KITCHEN- EVENING

Ellie picks a knife up in order to protect herself from getting hurt

[2.7] OUTSIDE- EVENING

One of the girls have been caught by the spirit and tied up outside. The person caught has been attacked due to the blood over her legs. They are trying to escape but have ropes around them

[2.8] HOME IN BEDROOM- EVENING

Ellie and Collette meet up to look through the papers and pictures they found and try to gather more information. Ellie picks up a newspaper article and begins to read

[2.9] HOME IN DINING ROOM- EVENING

Ellie is getting strangled by a spirit that can not be seen, Ellie is trying to get the hands of her throat so she can breath, however she is struggling

[3.0] HOME IN BEDROOM- EVENING

Arms appear into a bedroom, this shadow is trying to reach for Collette as she sleeps in her bedroom

[3.1] HOME BEDROOM- EVENING

Collette slowly goes back to lay down in her bed after hearing a noise

[3.2] HOME BEDROOM- EVENING

Extreme close-up of a spirits face screaming in Collette’s bed trying to get her

[3.3] HOME BEDROOM- EVENING

Extreme close-up of Collette’s reaction to the spirit in her bed screaming, Collette is very scared and does not know what to do as she is in shock

Planning our Trailer

Our poster 'Contageon’ Evaluation

“Sent chills up my spine, a must see horror” I believe this is effective on our poster as it helps people believe it is a good film and enjoyable. This also targets my audience as they can see it is a horror as it ‘sends chills up the spine’. It is also effective as the critic is from a well known newspaper- The Guardian. As it has come from a well known newspaper people will believe it is reliable and trustworthy. The star rating is also effective as five stars is a lot of stars for a film to get, this will show the readers it is a must see quality film.

We feel our title ‘Contageon’ is effective as it is a symbol of witchcraft. Our title links in with our film as our teaser is about witches’ spirits that come back to haunt the school as a chant has been found. Our title gives part of the film away. We believe the title stands out as it is not all one colour and it is also on a dark background. We also put a bit of blood on one of the letters to make it more effective and to fit in with the horror theme. Our title is in a bold font as we wanted it to stand out to the audience and for them to remember the name.

I feel our tagline ‘Life is a symptom, death is a cure’ is effective as it draws the audience in further due to the witty saying and also the colour of the writing. We put the word ‘death’ in the colour red as it stands out from the rest of the words and also it shows death will be shown in the horror, also red links with the theme of death and gore.

I feel that having the date of the realease date is effective as the audience will be looking forward to seeing it and will keep looking for when it is out in cinemas around near them. I feel that maybe this will also attract the audience as we have given the real date. We believed by putting coming soon it would be less effective as people will forget about it whereas with putting the date people will remember the date and will look forward to seeing it.

When analysing posters we noticed that they have small print at the bottom of the posters. This writing had information about the film characters etc. We decided to include this in our poster to make it look professional. We believed our poster should include everything for our audience to believe our film is worth seeing.

We have also inluded a classification sticker on the bottom right hand of the poster. We done this as we needed to target an audience, we found our target audience by looking at the Pearl and Dean website, we realised the most amount of people who watch horror films are mostly 15-24 year olds, this is why we have deicided to classify ours a 15.

We feel that the use of pictures on our horror poster is effective as they are all real life shots from the film itsself. Having shots from the film shows the audience what they can expect from the film. We made sure we used strong images from the film to give the horror feel and to be able to persuade someone to watch it.

I like the way that we layed our pictures out. From looking at posters, our inpiration was the ‘Sorority Row’ poster. We liked that the pictures had been places in a film role as it shows it is to do with a film. We also liked the way the film tape is in the shape of an X. An X is usually and sign of not to enter or danger, we believed this gave away a horror feel.

We feel that the use of our background is effective as we used blood on dark browns. We believe this gave an eerie effect and an old effect to the poster. We wanted to give the old effect of as our film is about finding an old chant and pictures etc. To finnish the old look we made sure the background was not neat as we wanted the background to look creased.

Questionnaire Evaluation

Evaluation

My audiences most popular favourite genre of horror was teen, with supernatural coming second. In comparison, psychological horrors may be too complicated to understand whilst drama horrors may demand a high level of concentration too and possibly be too serious and heavy on the mind to watch. Therefore, I shall produce a teen/supernatural horror teaser trailer as the supernatural genre is very interesting, suspensful and exhilerating.

My consumers felt that they expected to see blood and weapons as conventions in horror films. This enables me to make sure my product includes popular conventions, therefore i will capture shots of weapons and blood. A very small amount of the population surveyed answered 'death', however, for a teaser trailer i do not want to give too much away so i shall not include any death sequences or shots. Also, 'witchcraft' achieved the same percentage but I quite like the idea of witchcraft so I might make it a vague storyline to catch on to in the teaser.

Famous actors/actresses were not important for a horror trailer according to statistics. My consumers stated that when the actors/actresses are unknown it makes the film seem more realistic and scary. I will use this knowledge to my advantage as my actors/actresses will be unknown.

Films rated 15 were preferred, rather than 18 films. This may be due to 15 rated films covering more of a variety of genres, 18 films seem to be narrowed down to specific genres such as graphic and violent action/horror films.

My audience were split between whether hand held camera technique is effective therefore, if i get the chance to use the technique i will but i will try not to use too much of it incase it places a distractive chaotic effect on the trailer.

On a scale of 1-5, 1 being the lowest, my audience rated the soundtrack to be of an importance at 4. This means I will need to emphasise and use the soundtrack to its advantage to make the overal trailer suspenseful and dramatic.

When I asked my audience what hooks them to watching a horror after viewing the trailer, the majority of them answered 'action', 'storyline', 'review' and 'actors/actresses'. This information will help me interest the viewers on a wider scale. I shall include reviews on the poster as teaser trailers don't usually have reviews in it, i will keep the actresses/actors i use anonymous, i will keep the storyline vague but interesting enough to pull the viewer in and i shall use a lot of action shots to capture the audience's mind.

Overall, the results have helped me greatly in making decisions about my film trailer.