Sinister Trailer

This weekend I have been continuing to edit my trailer together and I have been watching horror trailers to get some ideas for the text inbetween clips.
One of the trailers I looked at was Sinister which contained something that I really liked; at the start it has flashes of pictures to do with the victims and the plot. I thought I could do this- pictures of Lauren and Freddie laughing and being happy instead of the footage that I had planned to do as I am not going to have enough space in my trailer for extra footage. I could also then flash images of the music box in between to foreshadow what's going to happen.

I also liked how they had alternating clips of the video tapes playing and the bad things happening as it shows they are an effect of the video tapes. - I could do this with my music box too.

Filming Plans: 7th of March

Planning of My Film Magazine

I've sketched what I'd like my film magazine cover to look like

I am going to use this image

Editing Software: Adobe Premiere Pro

I got the program Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my trailer in a more professional and sophisticated way than I thought I would be able to do on Windows Movie Maker.

I found the program difficult to use at first but after watching various YouTube tutorials I felt like I could figure out what to do. However the program had a glitch which made it near impossible for me to edit the trailer as it was jump past things and it had lag which made the audio out-of-sync with the visuals.


I searched google to find how to fix this problem and found that it was common amongst users of the version of the program which I had, a friend told me to 'render' the video and that would work but unfortunately it didn't and so I decided I would just continue using Windows Movie Maker.

Editing Software : Windows Movie Maker

Everything that I have filmed so far I have then edited using Windows Movie Maker as I have used this software many times before and so I know what all of the tools do and how to use them.

This is what the site looks like altogether and as you can see there are a lot of different windows and tools. 

Here is where you can add music, photos and video to your project and also text screens.

The 'emphasise narration' tool is going to be good for when I film the voiceover.

 Here are all the video tools, you can change the volume and speed and also trim videos to cut out the parts which you don't like. This works well for me when there is a part of a video clip when we are talking or I am telling people what to do.

These are the music tools which work the same as video tools.

These scene was very dark as I had a lack of lighting due to it being a night time scene so I increased the brightness of the clip.

Locations Update

As I was struggling to get everyone together to film at tasha's house for the remaining scenes- the attic I was thinking of alternative.

At school our drama studio has lots of different cupboards which my teacher showed to me and the mise-en-scene is perfect for a cluttered attic ...

 I think the mirror could provide a good shot of the moment which James gets possessed.


This is the other cupboard which I don't think would be as good/easy to film in but I like the stuff that's in there as it looks more like a house than a school so I could move some things from there into the other cupboard.

How I Did My Poster: Images

For this image I turned the brightness- light down as well as the saturation which made the image black and white.


With the black and white filter option I moved the yellow levels to the right which made any yellow tones in the photo whiter rather than black or grey- there were yellow tones in James' skin and so that's why he's so pale.


I then coloured in his eyes using a black paintbrush on Photoshop

For the second image I did the same technique with the black and white filter, sliding the yellow levels to the left.

I used an effect filter which was called 'crayon and chalk' that created the texture within the image.

I then de-saturated the image to get it even darker and greyer.

I lost some of the bright-whiteness in his skin when I applied the filter and so I upped the exposure which brightened any white levels.

I added a 'posterize' filter to this which created a cartoon effect and then I did the same black and white technique.

I am going to print each of these out and ask people what they think/ which one they prefer. Personally I prefer the first one as I think it has the most attention on James' character.

New Media

New media from emilyrosemedia23

Audience Theories

Audience theories from emilyrosemedia23

Finding a Title

Titles for my horror trailer from emilyrosemedia23

'Waves' of Horror

'Waves’ of horror from emilyrosemedia23

Marketing of Trailers

Voiceover info + Updated Script

There are two main types of voiceover within trailers....

1. A narrator describing the film - someone who is not in the film themselves but personally I have never seen this in a horror trailer. An example is here...



2. The characters are talking over scenes of them doing something else.

Mine is going to be more like number 2- my protagonist, Lauren will be talking at the start about the events at the start of the film and the audience will think it's a narration but towards the end it goes onto the scene where she's actually talking to her friend on Skype about everything that's going on.

I've come up with a script below:

Lauren: (VOICEOVER) When we moved here everything was going so well, the house is so nice and so are the people here.

***

Lauren: (DIGETIC) To her friend via video. Hi, we're really missing you but I'm gonna give you a tour of the new house!

Freddie:BOO!

Lauren: UGH! Stop trying to scare me you idiot!

***

Lauren: (DIGETIC)So here's my bedroom, we're not allowed to paint yet because it's only just been rebuilt after the fire but just ignore that.

***

Lauren: (VOICEOVER) We were so happy there in this big, beautiful house but then things started to go wrong, and I think it's because(DIGETIC) There's something wrong with Freddie

Tasha: What?!

Lauren: I, I don't know(VOICEOVER) he looks really unwell and weird things have been happening to me 

Tasha: Like what?

Lauren: Well first there were strange noises and flickering lights

Tasha: Maybe it was just a powercut?

Lauren: No, no it was more than that. I'm hearing footsteps in the middle of the night, loud enough to wake me up and when I do, he's there .

Tasha: Well what are you gonna do?

Pros and Cons of Different Research

Types of Research from emilyrosemedia23

Storyboard Groups

I've grouped together the scenes of my storyboard that I'll need to film together on the same day.

These are the scenes that I can film in my house with just my sister so they're going to be the easiest for me to film. I have already filmed the first one on here.

 These are the scenes to film at my house with everyone, I am hoping to do this next Wednesday. They need to be filmed after school as I'll be doing James' make-up.

These are the scenes that I need to film at Tasha's house, I have filmed all of these now.

Music

A vital part of my trailer is going to be the music as it creates the tension that is needed for a horror trailer. I watched the Conjuring trailer which contains a consistent piece of music in the background of the whole trailer which creates a really interesting effect.

I've thought about this and I want a plain piece of music going through the whole trailer and then I might add higher tension music on top or the music box music. 

This is my favourite as it's very unsettling.

Make-up

This week I have been looking at horror film make up. I found a lot of special effects make up to create very gory and deformed villains but these are seen more in the slasher genre and as my film doesn't contain any kind of monster this doesn't really apply to me.

My idea throughout has been to make James look ill during the end scenes of the trailer to show that he is the one effected by the spirit. A few years ago I watched a film called The Possession which features a teenage girl who becomes possessed and throughout the film she did look ill and almost dead.

I've been watching a lot of video tutorials on 'halloween sick makeup' for inspiration and tips on what to get and what to use, here's one that I found particularly helpful from the YouTube channel 'MyPrettyFlesh' ....




From the tutorials that I have watched I've come up with a list of things to get...

• Red eyeliner/ eyeshadow
• Grey, black and white eyeshadows 
• Brushes

I also did a sketch of what I want James to look like....

Character Profiles

Intertextuality

Intertextuality from emilyrosemedia23

What I Learnt From My Institutions Research

From my institutions research I have learnt that popular, mainstream production companies don't often release small-budget horror films as they make less profit that blockbusters.

Because of this I have decided to create a specifically horror production company for my own trailer as my film would not be a high budget film and it has a less popular cast than mainstream blockbusters.