Continuing to Plan!

Character List:

We thought quite a bit about what characters we wanted in our trailer and how the character would make the trailer more interesting and intense. These are the characters that we wanted to include in our trailer:

·         Main Character: -   Young Women

-          Brown Hair

-          Typically pretty/ popular

-          Typical lifestyle for a young woman e.g. Finished school, has a car and lives with her parents

We already knew who we wanted to cast as our main character for this project, so we based her looks and lifestyle around her. We already knew what kind of story we wanted to do and Helena, our main character, fit in with this story.

·         Second Main Character: -         Man, around the same age as girl

-              Strange and unpopular

-              Goes un-noticed, mysterious and no one really knows a lot about him

We weren’t sure of who we could have for this character, but when we thought about who we could cast for this role we knew that the person we did cast would be suitable for the part. We cast Eddie as he matched the appearance of the character in our trailer.

Setting:

As soon as we started to plan our trailer, we knew that we wanted it to take place on a road near a forest. However this was difficult as we couldn't think of anywhere local that would fit our criteria.

Luckily we thought that maybe we could film it in Savernake forest. We wanted this type of setting as it is dark and creepy, with lots of places that someone could hide. This would be totally fitting for our trailer.

Music:

For the music, we wanted something that was chilling and created a lot of suspense, making sure that we attract our audience fully to the film.

We had the idea that we would create some of the music we wanted to add after having a lesson on garage band and how to use it. We thought that if we created the music ourselves we would be able know that there was the most tension that we could create. 

Our First Plan

This is mine and Rosie first plan for our trailer. We have made a brainstorm of what our trailer could be about.

After making this mind map, Rosie and I decided that we wanted to make a Horror trailer as we thought this would be fun to experiment with. There are many different categories that we found to do with horror, for example, Supernatural horror.

After deciding on our genre, we did some research on horror trailers. There is quite a recurring pattern throughout these trailers. We found that there was always tension music, very often resembling a heartbeat. The pace of the trailers usually starts slow, getting faster as the suspense gets higher.

 I researched the trailer for “Dawn of the Dead”. Throughout this trailer there is high pitched music the gets louder. There is a slogan in the middle of the trailer saying “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk.” This makes the audience want to know what is going to happen next. As the pace gets faster there are a few blackouts making it seem like the trailer is over, however, the screen then flashes to something frightening that is going to happen.

This is the link to the trailer for “Dawn of the Dead”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUzJAsa-gg

Our Ideas:

We made a brief plan of what type of horror trailer we wanted to make. We made a timeline of how the trailer would begin and end.

We had the idea that our story would be based on a woman with someone following her. Our trailer would start off with the young woman getting into her car sometime in the day, we also wanted to put a in a shot from behind a tree, as if someone were watching her. It would then become dark and again she would be in her car. We then had the idea of her seeing something in or at the side of the road, making her panic and stop, making her get out to check and move the object, giving the stalker time to get into her car. We wanted to have some high pitched music here creating tension. The next shot would be of the women running through the forest away from the person; the pace of the trailer would then speed up. The end shot would be of our character hiding behind a tree and in the background we will see a dark figure emerge from behind her ending with a scream. This is where we would then put the title and information of the film’s release date.

These are just our first plans for our film and are quite brief.

Trailer Conventions

There are many ways to advertise your film to the world, but one of the easiest is to put it into a trailer. This is the most popular way to show your film the world as it can be seen on the internet, television and even heard on the radio.
A trailer has many different purposes, for example, it informs people of when the film is out and what the certificate is. It also gives us a taster of the film and what the plot of the story may be to attract the target audience and  instantly people will be deciding if this is the type of movie they would want to see.
An effective way to attract the audience is to show the best bits of the film in order for it to seem as exciting or scary or romantic as it can, depending on the genre of the film. This can also be done by the use of music that fits in with the atmosphere of the trailer. For example, if the trailer was advertising a horror film there would need to be music that creates suspense and makes your heart race.
As well as the genre and music attracting an audience there are other ways to get their attention. A trailer and film always needs a Unique Selling Point (USP). This could be the use of 3D in the film as this is much more popular now than it used to be. However, a USP could also be the cast and crew of the film. For example, many people go to see films just for the actors that appear on screen, this is very good for films such as 'Harry Potter' as they already have a huge fan base so the audience will already be attracted to the films, however people that have not seen all the films will be attracted to the green light actors that are already very famous. People may also be interested in the film because of the cast. For example, many people wanted to see 'Avatar', not just because of the graphics or the many famous faces featured in it or the fact that it was in 3D but because of the Director 'James Cameron'. Many people wanted to see if this film would be as big a success as 'Titanic' was.

I recently watched the trailer for 'Piranha 3D' to how they have made it attract such a big audience. Here is a link to the trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkF5VMRJGek

The genre of this film is a horror, we can tell this by many things. Firstly the music, it sounds a lot like a heartbeat and it creates suspense, making the viewer wonder what is going to happen next. We can also see that it is a horror by the images being frozen on screen in red, implying that there is going to be blood. The narrative of the film is another clue to the audience that it is a horror, as it is told by one of the characters who is explaining about these killer fish. This is a poster for the film, making it obvious that it might be a horror as there seems to be something swimming towards the girl.

     Another clue to the genre of this film is the fact that there is a party on the beach where all the kids ignore the threats of potential danger. As well as the certificate being 18, the characters in the party scene give us a good idea of what kind of target audience this film is looking for. This being mostly teens to adults as they will appreciate the gore throughout the film.

The Unique Selling Points in this film are obviously the 3D factor as many people are very interested in seeing 3D films, however, another USP is one of the main stars Kelly Brook. As she already has a huge fan base a lot of people would like to see her on the big screen.

The pace of this trailer starts off slower like a heartbeat, matching the music, it then speeds when we see all people attenting the beach party, until finally slowing down to the heartbeat again to create the tension of the climax of the trailer. These are backed up by the camera angles and shots. There is an establishing shot showing the setting of the film, however there is a lot of close ups of the characters and the piranha's showing the expressions and horror.

There is a brief voiceover saying the title but most of the dialogue is from the characters describing the piranhas.

Finally, the last factor that shows us that this film is a horror is the slogan and title of the film. These are almost thrown at the screen keeping in tone with the rising tension. The slogan saying "How Fast Can You Swim?" this seems to be quite a threatening quite in context of the images on screen.

All of these factors mentioned are important to the success of a trailer as they are the things that draw the audience in making them want to see the rest of the film.