Film Classifications!

Classifications are a very important factor to films. They are put in place to protect young or vulnerable audiences. They make sure that children are not seeing images that might harm them.

Although we cannot know what might upset a child, a ‘U’ certificate is usually suitable for children of the age of four and over.  They should have a positive moral framework and should show a reassuring view to violence, threat or horror.

An example of a U film would be "Monster Inc."

The ‘Parental Guidance’ certificate are mostly suitable for general viewing, however there may be scenes that are unsuitable for children. Films with this certificate should not disturb a child aged 8 or older. Parents should take the responsibility to consider whether the content of the film may upset their child.

An example of a PG film is "Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events."

The ’12’ and ‘12A’ certificates have the same criteria as each other; they are classified this because only suitable for children 12 and above as they may contain images that could upset children under 12 or have material that parents may find unsuitable for their child to be watching.

‘12A’ certificate only exists in  films screened in cinemas as the film may contain material that parents may not be happy for their child to be watching on their own, so a  child of 12 is not allowed to see a film          with this certificate without being accompanied by an adult, giving it the name 12 Accompanied ‘12A’.

The classification ‘12’ is only used for videos/DVD’s, meaning no one younger than 12 can buy or rent a film with this certificate.

One of the films certified 12A is "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

No one younger than 15 years old may see, rent or buy a ‘15’ certificate film. This is because there maybe unsuitable material that may upset anyone younger than 15, including strong language, horror and mild drug use.

An example of a 15 film is "The Long Weekend"

Like the previous certificate, ‘18’ is only suitable for adults, meaning no one under the age of 18 can see, rent or buy a film with this certificate. This is very similar in reference to the ‘15’ certificate. It includes drug use, sex and horror.

The film "Sin City" is an example of an 18 film.

The final certificate is ‘R18’ is called this because it is restricted to anyone under the age of 18. You can only see these in specially licensed cinemas. This is primarily because of the explicit content and very strong sexual references including strong fetish images involving adults.

I have researched the criteria for my trailer to decide what certificate would be most appropriate. It was quite difficult to decide what certificate we wanted for our trailer, as I have researched into different films and their certificates and have found that sometimes there is a different rating for the trailer to the film to get it seen by the widest audience possible. 

So thinking about the criteria and how many people we would want to see our film, I research the films I had previously looked into that were similar to our trailer. I wanted to see what certificate they had to give me an idea of what certificate would be most suitable for our trailer. 

I researched the film "Psycho" again and found that  the certificate it was  given  was  a 15.  I think that this is because the film  doesn't contain any graphic  horror  making it acceptable for it to be certificated as a '15'. 

After looking into this research  we have decided that our trailer will be certified as a  'PG' as it contains no graphic horror or bad language. It also has no drug use, however the final film would probably be classified as a '15' because it does contain some mild horror scenes that may upset younger children.

AUDIENCE THEORIES!

There are four different types of media theories that are important in the industry to attract the widest target audience. The main theories are: 
                         1. The Hypodermic Syringe Theory

                         2. The Two Step Flow Theory

                         3. The Uses and Gratifications Theory

                         4. The Reception Theory

Hypodermic Syringe Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory, also known as the Magic Bullet Theory, was the first major theory involving the effect of the mass media on society. This theory started in the 1920s, it was based on the idea of an all-powerful media direct effects on the viewer or audience. The Hypodermic Needle Theory is an effects theory that contends viewers are passive, and directly affected by what they view; people accept the message they see without thinking of its message. In that way media content is shot at the audience like a magic bullet, directly penetrating the viewer' mind.

The audience passively receives the information that is given to them through the media. They are manipulated into what they’re being told and seeing is true.

Two Step Theory

This theory shows that information from the media moves in two distinct stages. First, individuals (opinion leaders) who pay close attention to the mass media and its messages. Opinion leaders pass on their own interpretations adding to the other media content. The term ‘personal influence’ refers to the process between the media’s direct message and the audience’s ultimate reaction to that message. Opinion leaders are quite influential in getting people to change their attitudes and behaviors and are quite similar to those they influence.

 Media is changed through other people before it gets to the audience and has time to influence their opinions, building on to the Hypodermic syringe theory. The best example of this would be TV Critics and how they can change information before it has a big effect on people. 

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Uses and Gratification theory suggests that media users play an active role in using the media. The theorists say that a media viewer seeks out a media source that best fulfills their need. Uses and gratifications assume that the user has alternate choices to satisfy their need.

The audience chooses what they want to see and believe. They use actively for their own use meaning they can watch what they want and create their own opinion.

The public is not a sitting target for the world of media, but claims we use it to suit ourselves, interpreting it in ways that we like and that work for us.

Reception theory

A persons gender, age, class and ethnicity effects how they receive and interpret particular information given to them by the media.

Reception theory argues that contextual factors, influence the way the spectator views the film or television program. Contextual factors include elements of the viewer's identity as well as circumstances of living and even broad social, historical, and political issues. In short, reception theory places the viewer in context, taking into account all of the different factors that might influence how she/he will read and create meaning from the text.
Producers can use particular conventions to make the audience see their film/television programme in the way they want to. 

STORYBOARD!

This is the final draft of our storyboard for our Horror trailer.

Whilst thinking of our trailer we had many ideas for how we could present our film in the scariest way possible. When we first started to think about our storyboard we had so many ideas that we eventually had to cut our ideas down to the best and most interesting shots.

We didn't want to give too much away about our film as we wanted it to seem frightening but still have an air of mystery so that the audience are left guessing, making them want to see the rest of our film.   

We decided that for our trailer we didn’t want much dialogue to make it more eerie. We also decided that we wanted it to look dark and dingy like the atmosphere of the trailer, so we wanted to add a dark effect when editing.

We also wanted to have the pace really fast for our trailer to create high tension and have people on the edge of their seat.

Film Poster Research

Within our trailer project, we have to create a poster advertising our film. We wanted to look for posters that would give us inspiration for our own poster that would draw the attention of our target audience.

We researched many different posters that have the same genre of ours. The ones that we were most drawn to were “Scream” and “The Skeleton Key”. These are both interesting posters because they are not conventional horror posters.

I really liked the “Scream” poster because it is not the most terrifying poster. This close up shows the reaction of the victim, this is very effective because we want to know what this character is screaming about. The use of black and white with a hint of colour in the eyes also looks very good because we are instantly drawn to the blue in her eyes. The eyes also give us her expression even though most of her face is covered.

This is the second poster that we looked at. We liked this poster also because it is very clever how they out an image into the close up of the eye. To me this represents how much this eye sees. I think this is what might draw the audience’s attention and they might start to ask questions like: Who is the man? Why is he in the wheelchair?  And, What has the eye got to do with this man?

These are all things that made me want to see the film and I think that this is the most vital point of a poster, to make your audience curious.

These two posters gave us a lot of inspiration for what we wanted our poster to look like. We really like the idea of having it in black and white with just one element of colour drawing you in. We also liked the way there was an image within the eye. For our first poster idea we wanted to have a close up of our female main characters eye/s with another image inside the eyes. We wanted our male main character to be the image within the eyes adding to the air of mystery and making people ask questions and make them curious so that they want to see the film. We aren’t sure of what the images will be yet but we know that they will definitely include our two main characters.

Trailer Research

Whilst planning my trailer I wanted to find others of the same genre to give ideas of how to present it and which type of music would suit the atmosphere for it. 
I started by looking at the trailer of the film 'Psycho'. I thought that this trailer was very well made because there was a lot of tension created by the sound of the music. The short, high pitched sounds made it chilling making the film seem twice as scary. This is the link to the trailer. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi327287065/

I think that along with the trailer, the poster is also creates suspense. This makes the audience want know what will happen and what exactly the tag line means. The use of Red in the poster also lets us know that its a horror, as it symbolises blood. 


Another trailer that I looked into was 'Wrong Turn'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naUUyD-_oPc I looked at this mainly because it has a similar setting to our ideas and thought that this would be a good link. The forest sets the scene for this trailer as the characters become trapped within the woods, trying to escape from the villains. The music in this trailer is similar to the music in 'Psycho'. The high pitch creates tension for the film, drawing the audience in to the terror.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyugHTKPuc The last film that I researched was 'Scream'. This is also quite similar to the others in which it has the same tension music. 
The short and snappy images that occur in all of these trailers make the pace of the film fast. Showing that there is a lot of danger and lots of people running away from the killer. 
All of these trailers I have looked at have some sort of stalker theme in them which is very relevant to our film as this is what we have based ours on. So researching these films has really helped with our ideas. 

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.