My Trailer

This is the opening shot of my trailer. It shows my actress looking over her shoulder as she enters her house, creating a sense of paranoia. It also initiates the theme and hints to the audience what my trailer is about.

I then developed the sense of paranoia further by having several different shots of my actress walking into her house to create the feeling of her being watched. I did have more shots like these, but due to my audience feedback I took some of them out as it made my trailer too long.

After six seconds I began to introduce my titles. “Ever felt like you were being” I didn’t finish this sentence as it creates a sense of tension, as I repeat it and it flashes across the screen…

I then made the writing bold to reiterate the point and then slowly bought in the final word…”followed”.

There are several alley sequences within my trailer that offers a change of scenery and shows several different angles of shots to portray the stalker. The lighting in these shots are good as well, because it shows the extent of the stalking and how she is being followed night and day.

I then introduced my next set of titles “when a crush” I put this title with the shot of the photograph with the girls face scratched out. I wanted to portray how serious the stalking was and to what extent the stalker would go.

“becomes..” comes as I sped up the clip to make the girl look like she was walking quickly because she felt like she was being followed.

This is my favourite shot of the trailer as it is a close up of my actress looking over her shoulder, and it is the first time that I introduce the name of the film. I stretched the time of the clip as well to mix up the length of clips and sequences.

These two titles are introduced as the trailer is coming to an end. Just like the first titles, they are flashed in and out to create a distorted feel. I used the same colour for “trust” as I did for the title, as I wanted to tie “trust” and “obsession” together.

I used this shot to introduce the stalker for the first time but I didn’t want to give away their identity. I just wanted the audience to know that there was a threat and that there was a stalker to answer their suspicions.

To end my trailer I layered the film title in different colours and sizes to reiterate the obsession. I used the font that I am using to promote my film, it’s called ‘anonymous clippings’ and looks like clippings from a ransom letter.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

From my research into teaser trailers and their conventions I have discovered that they should include the following:-should last between half a minute to a minute-Use film footage or utilize a new source material (e.g the dark knight)-Use web addresses to find another form of attracting the viewer- They don’t have to be over the top- Titles or voice overs to explain the plot- A broad overview of the plot and charactersThe trailer that influenced my own work the most was ‘OBSESSION’ starring Beyonce Knowles. The trailer used entirely footage from the film and showed many different scenes throughout the trailer. As I have previously stated throughout my research and my director’s commentary, I enjoyed the use of shots in this trailer and how they were jumpy and quick at the beginning to create a sense of confusion.

The trailer is the same length as a teaser trailer should be, it is giving the audience an insight into the plot of the film, but doesn’t give it away too much. It allows the reader to grasp the concept, and hopefully leaves them wanting more.I also used music as a backing track and didn’t use any dialogue as it would give away the plot too much, and without dialogue it will entice the audience to want more clarification as to how the plot thickens. I also used titles within my trailer to explain the plot, and explore parts of the trailer and the film. The titles help to encourage the audience to want to see the film as they ask questions and make blunt statements to help move the trailer on and move onto different aspects.My trailer challenges the ‘broad overview of plot and characters’. My trailer only has one actress in the entire trailer. Most trailers would use many different characters or more than one main character to help explain and explore the plot in more detail. However, I decided to only use the one actress as I felt as though there was more to be explored, but that was what was to be looked forward to within the actual film. I think that the use of one character still gives sufficient enough detail as to what the film is about with help from the titles and the shots. I made sure that I showed the hand of the ‘second main character’ a.k.a ‘the stalker’ so that there was an indication to the audience, in case they were unsure by anything else that there was anybody else involved. I only briefly showed the stalkers hand, as I do in my poster so that it entices the audience to want to come and watch the film to find out who he/she is, as after all, a teaser trailer is teasing the audience into coming to see the film to find out what happens.

What have you learned from your audience feedback on your trailer?

What have you learned from your audience feedback? During my audience feedback I learnt quite a few things about my trailer. I had several responses to my surveys, admittedly not as much as I had originally hoped but enough to get a general idea about what people were thinking about what I had done. Is the genre of the film clearly established by the trailer? What genre do you think this trailer is?Luckily, everyone came back with the same response that they thought that my trailer was of the horror/thriller genre. This is explained by responses to the next question….Does the representation challenge or conform to stereotypes/expectations of the genre?The majority of response revealed that they thought that yes, the representation conforms to stereotypes/expectations of the genre, yet there could have been more scenes that were scary or intimidating. The dark lighting and the chase sequences were the main aspects that were seen to conform, yet there could have been more of these. There definitely should have been a scene within the trailer that made the audience jump or that shocked them.

Did the music work with the genre and the types of shots of the trailer?The overall response seemed to be that the music was successful in creating an eerie and sinister atmosphere. “The pace is frustrating as it creates a slow effect, yet we want the character to be desperate to escape as we as the audience know what is happening and she doesn’t…creating dramatic irony”Was the trailer too long or too short?There was a mixed response to this question, from my research, most teaser trailers should be about 30 seconds to a minute long, mine coming in at roughly 53 seconds seemed to be at a reasonable length.My results were almost split down the middle with some people saying that the trailer was “quite long for a teaser trailer” yet there should be more variety within the scenes of the trailer so maybe more locations and events. Yet other responses stated that the trailer was a good length to grasp the concept of the film and not becoming “boring and monotonous”.

I also interviewed my friend Emma in front of the camera so that I could see what she thought of my film and how she thought that I could improve. The first point that she made was that my trailer was a bit too long at the start; she said that I have the same clips “showing the same thing” repeated at the start and that it took too long to get into. When I looked back at my trailer I completely agreed with her so I took out about 4 seconds of clips and started with the extreme close up as it was of better quality film than the others.

She also said that the titles were a bit too child like and that she wouldn’t associate them or the colour pink with a horror genre. I again, completely agreed and therefore spent a few hours going through different fonts to find ones that I thought suited the genre. I used a handwriting font as I thought that it made it seem more personal, and could provoke the question, is it the stalker? Colour wise, I used a mixture of white and orange and mixed them together throughout.

My Poster

I decided to use this photograph because I wanted to convey that the film was about stalking but obviously I didn’t have the aid of using film to show this. You can see the stalkers hand on the door which shows that somebody is trying to enter. I then have the view of the girls face, she almost looks like she is expecting it.

This was my first draft of my poster, I made it lighter and inserted the film title and credits.

This is my final draft of my poster. I changed the contrasts and the saturation to create the dark light creeping across the actress’ face. I added comments from magazines and newspapers as well to help attract the audience.

I used surveys and facebook for my main source of audience feedback as I felt like most of the emphasis was on my trailer.

what would you do differently to the movie poster?

The majority of responses that I got to this question was that the poster was actually really strong, and that the only thing that I could have done differently was that I should have included a release date or ‘coming soon’. Looking back at this and looking through film poster research this was probably a mistake not to include a date when the viewer could expect the film to be released.

What would you do differently to the magazine cover?

From personal opinion, teachers opinions and my audience feedback my magazine cover was definitely the weakest of all of my media products that I developed. All responses basically said that my magazine cover was too bare and that the quality of the picture wasn’t good enough.

Do the poster/magazine grab your attention? if not, why not?

Again, linking back to previous answers, the poster was attention grabbing and the photograph was strong. Yet the magazine cover did not grab attention as the background was extremely plain and there weren’t any images or titles that caught the viewers attention.

Audience feedback on my Poster/ Magazine Cover

What features of the magazine/poster attracted your attention the most and why?

The text for my actress’ name and the masthead of the magazine seemed to be the biggest success’. Mainly because there wasn’t much else that jumped out to the audience.

The photograph on my poster was the main success, as it seemed to portray exactly what I was trying to get across. The look on her face, as though she had realised what was coming. It makes the audience ask…what’s going to happen? Is she in danger or is she prepared?