In order to start planning our film trailer, we needed to look at exsisting trailers in the horror/ scary movie genre. Above are some screenshots of the way text is used. This will be useful, because we will need to have text in our trailer.
- The first screenshot shows text being used to tell the audience when the film will be showing, the web address so they can look it up and also at the bottom, it says the production company. There is not much text on the page, but it has all the key points needed. They have kept to the SAW theme by having a red, misty background and the letters VI behind the main text in order to show that this film will be like the other sequels.
- Another title sequence that featured at the start of most trailers, was the green page with the text: "The following preview has been approved for appropriate audiences by the motion picture association of America, INC." This is a type of disclaimer used, so that the audience and company know that the film has been approved and is appropriate for viewing. We wouldn't need to have this at the start of ours, but to add effect we may choose to create our own.
- Screenshot three came from the Sorority Row trailer and is an example of text being used to narrate what is happening. This can be used very effectivley in some cases as it adds tension, but is also used to tell the audience what may happen in the film without giving too much away.
- Screenshot four is of the Title to Final Destination. We thought this one was a good example as it is very simple, yet tells the audience exactly what film it is. You can tell by the dark and smokey background that it will be of the horror genre. We will be using something like this in our trailer when we get to the title part
So that our trailer conformed to the conventions shown above, we used photoshop to design the title sequence. Instead of using "imovie", which had limited fonts, backgrounds and editing tools, photoshop enabled us to create a title as follows:
After creating this title sequence, we found out that it couldn't be imported into imovie. Therefore we had to make a title in imovie itself. Although it doesn't fit in as well as the photoshopped one would, we still used a similar font and went with the colour white.
Poster
On the left is a poster from the film "The Eye". A sepia tone has been used to give an effect of dullness and mystery. The film itself is about a person who gets an eye transplant, then after this then start seeing paranormal things. The effect of having the fingers coming out of the eye is clever as it gives the idea of another person behind the eye, trying to escape. The dull sepia colour also plays a huge part in the overall feel of the poster. The browns and blacks make the poster eery and creepy, rather than having bright colours with make up on the eye which would give the opposite effect of a happy person with nothing to fear.
The writing at the bottom predominantly shows the title and main star of the film. Underneath this is a list of things including producers, directors, production companies and filming locations etc.
To give our poster the appropriate conventions, we decided to use the eye theme (seeing as our film is called "Watching") and we also put in the list of people involved and out production company at the bottom. We needed to keep these in, otherwise it would of just looked like a picture, and not a poster to advertise something:
Magazine
Here we have a poster for the film "Terminator". The film title and caption are relatively small in comparison with the images that surround it, but is still big enough to stand out, particularly as it is white as opposed to the dark, sinister background. The main character is placed at the front, facing the camera. Half of his face has been cut off, perhaps implying that he is half man, half machine.
In order for our magazine to look like a professional one, we have kept the photograph at the front and the title of the film small but still big enough to be the main subject. The main purpose of a magazine is to cover the whole mainstream and sometimes art house films of the time. Therefore unlike the poster, we had to add in other media products and previews of what is included in the magazine:
