A2 Media Portfolio

My brief was to create a film trailer accompanied by two ancillary texts. My choice of genre was horror, mainly because horrors can be made on low budgets, make-up is easily accessible, cheap and convenient and lastly the actors do not have to be stunning performers; many horror films today are slated for their poor acting and obvious low budgets. I then decided on a zombie film, one of the sub-genres within horror.

As for my ancillary texts, I decided to create a film poster and an official film website. I have in the past created real working websites so I felt that my past experience in this field would be useful.

I began analysing other zombie films and the majority seemed to have similarities and conventions. For example, most zombie films look at an apocalyptic world, were the survivors are truly alone and everyday, rather stupid people are left to defend themselves. I therefore decided to incorporate these conventions in my own work, for example the ghost town shots reflect the loneliness of the survivors. The only different zombie films are either parodies or loosely related to zombies, like the monsters in ‘28 Days Later. (Danny Boyle/2002)'Therefore, if there aren’t any revolutionary or uniquely different zombie films out there, then this could suggest that there isn’t an audience for one. For this reason, I made the decision to stick to a conventional type of zombie-film as that is what the audience seem to want.

I also looked at the conventions of all trailers in general by analyzing ‘The Tourist. (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck/2010/USA, France)’. When I compared it to the other horror film trailers I discovered similarities like the common use of non-diegetic sound to make it more exciting, and the use of narration the explain the narrative. Therefore, I used these conventions in my own work; I have plenty of non-diegetic music to make the trailer scarier and more exciting, and a narration by the scientist and the news reporter to help the audience understand what is happening.

To really find out what audiences today are watching with relation to the horror genre, I created a questionnaire and distributed them among my friends and family. The results were that just over half watched horror films and the majority felt that horror films are directed to a teenage to young adult audience. They also felt that horror films are equally targeted at each gender but over 80% thought that zombie films were targeted at males. Therefore, I decided that I would try to create something that could be targeted at both genders. I wanted a large female cast and a strong female character to be present in my film trailer. The strong female character is the one who is smacking the out-of-shot zombie and about 70% of my trailer features female characters.

I chose to mostly use the conventions rather than challenging them to make my trailer easier to understand and easily identifiable. The story is not complex and does not need to be made simpler for the audience to understand, however once I found that my target audience were mostly likely teenagers, I needed something that meant that they could quickly identify the genre and hopefully scare them. Teenagers who watch horror films do not care for a sophisticated storyline, so something obviously horror with fast-paced editing keeps their attention and hopefully will make them want to see the film. I chose an easy identifiable storyline: A virus turns everyone into zombies and now the remaining uninfected have to survive.

The conventions of a zombie film are similar to an ordinary horror film. Black and Red are very common in horror films and zombie films as black connotates evil and red, danger and blood. I used this in my non-diegetic screens which display red text on black backgrounds particularly for the ‘coming soon’, which is something I found on the Angels and Demons(2009/Ron Howard) poster and connotates that danger is coming on this date.

Another convention of trailer is that they contain little dialogue as a soundtrack or song is placed over the top instead. This means that the audience won’t become as bored and a soundtrack is more exciting than dialogue. I decided to have both in my trailer. I kept a large amount of non-diegetic-sound-free-dialogue in my trailer as I felt it was important. In the trailer of ‘The Day After Tomorrow (2004/Roland Emmerich) only important narrative information was kept soundtrack free, so I felt that my important narrative information must also be too. In the parts of my trailer that had no real narrative information, I placed creepy music to stop the audience becoming bored.

Fast paced editing was a common feature of trailers. As the editing becomes faster, the tension and excitement increases. I saw this technique used in ‘The Tourist (2010/Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ which used it to build to some form of climax. This technique I decided to incorporate into my trailer at the end, to build tension and excitement just before the title of the film is announced. In a way, it’s like the snare of drums before someone important is introduced. I wanted my title to appear important, so the build up to it had to be dramatic.

One of the most obvious conventions of a trailer is that they are non-linear. Often they do not have a sense of continuity as the creators will place only the best bits of the film in the trailer, and these tend to not follow a linear order. The jumping of clips can also be used to make the trailer more exciting. Also, if a trailer was to contain only one, long clip of a film, the audience may not like it, yet the rest of the film may be to their liking. By selecting only parts of the film the trailer can present a more varied collection which will appeal to more people. I took this into account when creating my trailer, although some bits are linear, I also wanted a wider collection of footage so that it would be more appealing. These shots are in a montage because they can be used to condense space, time, and information, which I have limited.

However, I did challenge some conventions. Typically, horror films are set in the dark as it’s scarier. I decided to set most of my footage in daylight which again gives it a more realistic feel. I also discovered in my research that horror films are set in mostly deserted, ghost town places. To some extent my trailer uses this convention as the city is now a ghost town after the destruction but the original location would have been busy and full of life - not the typically deserted places often seen in horror films. This I incorporated in my work, as can be seen in the ghost town shots.

Zombie films are known also as doomsday films which are films that present the scenario of an apocalyptic world. Therefore, I decided to look at ‘The Day After Tomorrow ’ trailer which was helpful as this trailer has more of a narrative structure compared to ‘28 Days Later’, and I felt that this approach made the trailer easier to understand so I decided that I too would use some form of narrative in my trailer. This is featured mainly at the beginning, were the scientist explains the unusual tests that have been run on the humans and the bizarre and unexpected results which followed. Without this I think the audience would have been a little lost, as they might think that the zombies were rather strange human beings and may have wondered how they had come about. I also included a scene were two people discuss how they will over-power the zombie apocalypse, and I felt again this was necessary to add because it explains what direction the film is heading. Plus, the audience will want to find out whether they succeed or fail, so this would encourage them to see the film.

After my research I began to draft my work in the form of storyboards. Although a long process, the storyboards have constantly reminded me of how my trailer runs, the type of shots to use, the length of the shots and even the edits between (image 1). I began by imagining the whole trailer in my head, something which I actually did while present in hospital, and by sketching out various bits. I then wrote down a basic run-through and began drawing up the storyboards.

Make-up was something that I had to consider when creating my trailer. (post is here)In other films the make-up is used mainly to enhance someone’s features, however in my film, I needed the make-up to make my zombies. This included using a skin-safe liquid latex that could be applied to the face and distorted in various ways to make the skin look torn, burn and peeling (image 2). Compared to special facial ‘gum’ the liquid latex dries quickly, clear and looks very much like skin. Plus, any make-up placed on top of it comes off when you peel the latex off, saving valuable time after shooting when the make-up needs to be removed. I could also create latex moulds beforehand and paint them so all I had to do before filming was apply a small amount to the actors face and secure the moulds. This again saved valuable time. Overall, the make-up looks far more realistic with liquid latex because it’s three dimensional, compared to make-up which is just applied straight to the skin. Although we, as an audience, know zombies do not exist, I wanted to create verisimilitude as this would make the trailer seem scarier, as if it could exist.

The only disadvantage of the make-up is that it had to be ordered online. Usually this would have resulted in no problems, however at the time of placing an order, the country was hit by a considerable amount of snow. This meant that my liquid latex and face paints were delayed, and even though both companies assured me that my products had been dispatched, to this day, they have never arrived. This meant after waiting over month for them to come, I had to order more from a different supplier. Apart from it costing more, my shooting schedule was delayed over a month and this has made it difficult to get my work finished on time.

To increase the sense of verisimilitude in my trailer, I decided to use realistic, everyday locations with perhaps the exception of the laboratory. As my actor for the laboratory scene was my mother, the scene could not be shot in the science rooms at college. Therefore, I decided to shoot at home in my kitchen. I carefully positioned the camera away from any kitchen appliances and replaced kitchen utensils with medicine bottles, folders and cautioning posters - such as ‘lab coats must be worn in this area’. The walls were luckily tiled a utilitarian, sterile white just like in real laboratories. The thought-out props hopefully made my home kitchen appear just like a laboratory which would have been extremely difficult to do elsewhere (image 3).

Another way in which I tried to make my trailer look more realistic was to use hand-held camerawork. This in recent years has become more popular among horror films like ‘Cloverfield (2008/Matt Reeves)’ were the entire film is hand-held camerawork. This gives the impression of raw footage which makes the film look very realistic. I wanted my film to appear realistic, so I used a lot of hand-held camerawork like in the ghost-town shots and the Japanese shots. In a horror film, if something appears more realistic it’s scarier as you believe that something like this could happen. I wanted my audience to be scared by the prospect that this could really happen.

To make my film look even scarier, I decided to alter the colours slightly. Colours like orange and yellow aren’t perceived as scary so any clip with ‘warm’ hues was saturated and replaced by a light cyan colour to make it feel cold. I also increased the contrast and the black and white levels so that shadows became more prominent. Shadows are typically scary and associated with horror, so this is why I chose to define them in my footage.

From my research and questionnaire, I found that it was teenagers who are the target for horror films and subsequently the main audience of horror films. I therefore felt it was necessary to represent teenagers in my film and quite a lot of the actors in my film are teenagers to appeal to this audience.

As mentioned previously, I wanted a larger female presence to hopefully appeal to more females. I did not want them to seem weak and vulnerable but the opposite; I wanted the women to be the protectors and the avengers to challenge stereotypical views that women are weak and incapable. I watched a video called ‘How to survive a zombie invasion’ that parodies stereotypical views on nuclear families, women and the perfect American society. It clearly identifies that women are seen as stupid, pathetic and delicate with the mother of the family wailing and not helping the situation in any way. I do not like this view of women and therefore challenged it in my film trailer with the women attacking the out-of-shot zombie. However, all of the zombies in my film are female, and to some extent it does reflect the vulnerability – they obviously got caught first.

I decided to represent the children in my trailer as how they are usually portrayed: vulnerable and incapable of saving themselves. Real children would obviously be scared in this situation and I presented this in the scene were the girl is under the bed and crying for her mum and in the car scene were the girl hugs the teddy. In the shot were the same young girl is running, I wanted the audience to think ‘why is she on her own?’ and perhaps feel saddened that she is on her own.

Through the creating process, I happened to spontaneously conjure an idea that would good in my trailer. Although I had already storyboarded, it seemed a waste to not film these ideas. One of these ideas was to film a sign that said ‘God Help Us’ which shows the desperation of the people in the zombie apocalypse and also fits in with the convention of religion which is often seen in horror films like The Exorcist. It’s also realistic; In times of trouble, most people turn to their faiths to help them. I think that the sign, especially because of it’s handmade qualities, is powerful and dramatic.

Another idea I came up with was to, during the news report, cut to Japanese footage of body bags moving. The idea of the moving body bag came from ‘Shaun of the Dead (2004/Edgar Wright)’ where Shaun and Ed drive past an open ambulance where a recently resurrected zombie trapped in a body bag is trying to break free. It’s very sinister and creepy, so I felt that it would be perfect for my trailer. The vision of a Japanese news report came after the recent earthquake in Japan. Sky News cut to real Japanese news footage during their show and this looked incredibly raw and eerie. It also tells the audience that this problem is widespread and I think the idea of the whole world being infected is far more scarier than just the UK.

To make my Japanese footage, I firstly filmed the moving body bags which were nothing more than bin bags filled with cushions, with my sister in the one that moved. I then used Google Translate to create the dialogue ‘The bodies are moving’ and ‘Look! They move!’ in Japanese and the non-diegetic titles ‘Japan Today’ and ‘Red Alert’. Google translate is one of the best translation tools on the internet that I have found. Most translators just translate word for word and do not take into account the context or grammar rules. It also can pronounce the word phonetically, which is useful as Japanese is a agglutinative language so when it came to my actor speaking the Japanese, he could do this easily and convincingly. Although I highly doubt those who watch my trailer will understand Japanese, it makes the footage more authentic and realistic.

To create my ancillaries, I’ve used a host of programs, software and equipment. For my film poster, I used a digital camera (Samsung ES80) to take the pictures which then could be uploaded to my computer via the memory SD card and the card reader in my personal laptop. I used a free photo manipulation program which I found online a few months ago to edit my chosen photos. The program I used was sumopaint which can be found at sumopaint.com (image 4) and has similar properties to Adobe Photoshop. Although a simpler version, it can be accessed from any computer providing you have internet connection. Plus, you can save your work to a ‘sumo account’ so no matter what computer I was on, I could continue to work wherever I was. This came in useful when I found myself with extra time at college and even though I’d begun editing at home, I could access the file at college. The only disadvantage is that as it’s free and better tools for editing are only available to those who have purchased the premium addition.

I also used sumopaint to create my company logos that produce my imaginary film. Weatherprint Pictures and Citadel Films are companies I invented to make my trailer appear more realistic.

The first stage of the editing on my chosen photo was to cut out the hand and place on a new document so that text, the date of release and credits could be added. To avoid mistakes, each addition to the poster was placed on a new layer which allowed for easier changes and effects to be added.

The fonts I used on my poster (image 5) were found at dafont.com which has a huge selection of ‘destroy’ fonts which connotates the apocalypse and destruction that zombies have caused. The credits at the bottom are a font called ‘steeltongs’ which again was found at this site and is based on the squashed, tall text commonly seen at the bottom of a film poster.

I wanted my poster look like a zombie was trying to get in, which fitted with my tagline ‘don’t let them in’. During my research I had seen a poster for ‘The Last Exorcism’ which was a light grey colour. Conventionally, the poster should contain black and red, but I decided to challenge the conventions and go for lighter colours. However, I still wanted my poster to seem scary so I added a scratched effect which made the poster look old and destroyed just like with the title. I still added red as it connotated the danger that would occur - a technique I found on the Angels and Demons poster. Also from my research I found more posters are embracing the simpler look. Posters such as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope are typical of the over-crowded, ‘many images’ that are not used as much today. ‘Don’t Let Me In’ is a very simple poster of a girl curled up on a floor, the camera positioned above to give the effect of vulnerability. The text is small and the main image is too with much unused space left around it. However, the poster looks sophisticated and dramatic which is why I chose to use this technique; I wanted a dramatic look but with a destroyed effect. My poster has a main image of a hand surrounded by a large amount of unused space to make it stand out. I left out features such as ratings and actors names as I felt that this would over-crowd the poster and the simplicity would be lost.

The creation of my film website was harder than first expected (image 6). I drafted several different ideas but my previous knowledge of websites is that they should always have particular features such as an index and menu bar. After doing some more research I discovered that film websites are unlike regular websites as they quite similar to film posters. I found that just like with film posters they have a main image, sometimes even ratings, actors names, date of release and the title of the film. Therefore I had been approaching the design the wrong way. I then re-drafted with a main image and a large menu bar removing the index idea and replacing it with information like the certificate and company logos. This time I went for a black, evil look with dramatic red text which fits in with the trailer and the dramatic look of the poster. Originally I had the date of release on the site, but my trailer and poster say ‘coming soon’ which didn’t fit. To solve this problem I removed the date and placed a countdown clock which I really like because of it’s position; the countdown is placed above the title ‘The End’ which means the countdown clock is also counting down to literally ‘the end’. Hopefully the audience want to know more about what exactly the end is - is it the end of the world? This will make them want to see the film more.

I used a large variety of technology to create my ancillaries and my main product. Some of these were completely new.

Although I had used a camera and even the editing software before, there were still new technologies that I was challenged with. One of these were the HD cameras (Sony-1080i) which I had the opportunity to use for filming as well as the older Canon MD205 cameras. The advantages of the HD cameras (Sony-1080i) are that they allow you to focus on particular objects or people, which the Canon MD205 cameras do not. The sound quality also appeared to be better and these cameras could be charged via a plug power source rather than relying on pre-charged batteries which I’ve found to have run out on several occasions. The only problem with the HD cameras is that they are very big and difficult to transport. This meant that I had to rely on my mother to take me to and from college as I couldn’t carry the camera and the tripod. It was also quite unsafe to walk home with it. Although the Canon MD205 cameras cannot be charged at home and don’t have the advantages of the HD cameras, because they are smaller I’ve found it easier to transport them and also film in smaller spaces. For example, I had to film in a car and particular angles would have been impossible with the HD cameras due its size.

I have used the editing software, Adobe Premier Pro 1.5, before however this time I was introduced to Matrox effects. I have used these effects several times in my trailer such as one effect entitled Old Movie. This gives the video the effect of flickering and a feeling of ‘found footage’ as if it has been damaged in someway. This effect made my footage looks aged but also more sinister and scarier, which fits in with the horror genre. Also, the Matrox effect ‘Chroma Key’ allows the green in my footage that was shot in the green screen room to be changed to transparent so that a background could be placed behind. For example in my trailer, I filmed the news report in the green screen room and then replaced the background with a bluish world map which is typical of a news report.

The advantages of using software like Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 is that you can easily capture footage from the camera to the PC. The program also allows the user to cut clips, move them about, change the speed, shorten and lengthen clips, create multiple layers and crop. The variety of things that can be done to a piece of footage is excessive and ultimately the only downfall; I found it hard to chose what to do with my footage and this meant that I spent a lot longer on the editing than I should have.

In other videos I have created, I have always replied on sound that has been recorded on a video camera. In my trailer I needed sound effects and I was told about one particular site called freesound.org which has thousands of sounds royalty free and available to download. I spent hours searching for sound effects like blood curling screams and police sirens. Once I found them, I could simply download them to a memory stick and then transport them to the editing computer and transfer them to my video project. The reason why I wanted these additional effects were one, to make the trailer more realistic and two, to make it scarier; I added screams and scary ambient music for a creepier feel. Plus, I discovered from my research into horror films that ambient and additional effects are commonly added to films to make them scarier.

Animatrics are something that I’d never come across before (image 7). I have created many storyboards but never put them together as a video clip. The advantages of the animatric are that I can obtain a rough estimate of the length of the video and also whether the placement of frames makes sense and is continuous. The disadvantages are that it’s laborious to make and each frame is only a picture; the rest has to be mostly imagination. However, the animatric did help me discover that particular parts of my trailer were too long and therefore changes were made. I also found that some frames didn’t make much sense and were too boring alone, so I created more different frames to solve this problem. To make my animatric, I took my storyboards and used a scanner so that each frame could be uploaded onto the computer, cut out using MS Paint and placed onto Windows Movie Maker. I could have used the editing software at college for the collaboration of the frames, however, I mostly produced my animatric at home and Windows Movie Maker was the only software available. Plus, I only needed the frames to be placed together and a simple program like Windows Movie Maker can do this quickly and easily.

Blogging was something that I had done previously in my first year. The advantage of a blog is that I could post my work and it would be dated and organized. Plus, when I needed to look at my storyboards or script, I could view them from any internet connected computer and this came in helpful when I needed to look at previous work at home. Additionally, I could post videos, animatrics and hyperlinks which of course cannot be achieved on paper.

For all of my still images, such as the main image in my film poster, I used a Samsung ES67 camera which is a basic digital camera. Obviously a digital camera is better than a phone camera for instance because it is one, a higher resolution and two, the images are saved to a memory card which can be easily placed into a computer and the files transferred over. The disadvantage of the this camera perhaps compared to others of a different make is that it has SmartFlash. SmartFlash adjusts the flash brightness depending on the amount of light already present. This sounds quite good however it actually resulted in either extremely dark or extremely light images. To solve this problem I had to change the settings of the camera every time I had to take a photo, which was not only time consuming but irritating.

Microsoft Office has been used often in the creation of my work. Microsoft Word is a program I have used many times before, and it must be the best word processor that I have used. I have also used Microsoft Works word processor, but this does not allow things such as an in depth word count or the ability to place shapes, text boxes and graphs. Everything that has had to be written has usually been done in Microsoft word and then uploaded onto my Blog. I also used

Microsoft Excel for the data collected from audience feedback. The advantage of Excel is that once the data is inputted, it can be manipulated to make graphs, and used in averages. This came in useful when I needed an average score of the features used in my trailer.

To gain an insight into what other people thought about my work, I created a lengthy questionnaire that asked everything from the pace of my trailer to how it combined with my ancillary texts. Firstly, it asked questions about the person actually providing the feedback such as ‘what is your gender‘ and ‘have you studied film or media before?’. This was to help fair feedback as it doesn’t focus on one particular audience. Those who have studied film or media before will be more critical and analytical of my work. The only problem was that the age range of all those asked was quite narrow, yet, they fit within the mainstream audience so the data collected will not be too obscure.

I then went on to ask what genre they thought my trailer was. All of them replied horror. On the next page (so they weren’t tempted to put horror to appease me) I revealed that my chosen genre was in fact horror. I then quizzed them on the various elements and features of my trailer that I had specifically chosen to make it ‘horror’. One of these was the use of ‘scary sounds’ and they were asked to rate the sounds on a scale of one to ten, with ten being excellent and one being poor. The average score for the appropriateness of the sounds was 8.8, the volume was an exact 9 and scariness was rated on average at 9.2. I rate this as very successful, and it was one of the things that I personally found the most effective in my trailer.

Later in the questionnaire I asked what they did and didn’t like about my trailer. Two people said that the trailer was too slow and also gave the overall pace a less than seven on the scale of ten. I think that the narrative at the beginning is unlike a trailer as it isn’t fast or contains rapid editing, however, I think that it’s important because it helps the audience understand what has happened and the scale of the disaster. One person went on to say that the trailer looked like a real trailer and this of course means that even though I broke some conventions, and even though the pace is slow, my trailer is still successful.

I also wanted to know how successful my ancillaries were. I began by asking ,on a scale of one to ten as before, them to rate my film poster on things like ‘easiness to read’ and ‘use of colours’. Easiness to read and use of colours were both on average a high 9.2. Again, I feel this means that my attempts have been successful. Overall, the response to my film poster was extremely high. My film website was also rated quite positively. I asked similar questions to that of the film poster such as ‘easiness to read’ and ‘informative (date of release, etc…)’. ‘Easiness to read’ was given an average of 8.8 and ‘informative’ a 7.5.

One of the most important things that I asked was whether the ancillaries and my trailer work together effectively. I proposed these questions when asking about each individual piece, and whether they worked well and fitted in with the other two. I was pleased to find that this achieved a score of 9.2.

In all, my audience feedback suggests that each of my pieces of work are successful. For example, I asked whether on first glance my film poster looked like a film poster and everyone replied yes. This is important because in the real world as film posters will try to catch your eye everywhere you go - it only takes one look to become intrigued and this is what I wanted to achieve. My questions were suited to what my initial aims were. For example, I wanted my trailer to be scary, after all, it is a horror trailer. I asked whether my audience felt scared and asked them to rate the scariness of particular features like the non-diegetic titles. All of my audience feedback was positive except for the negative opinions on the pace. When I look at the feedback for the trailer and it’s ancillaries as a whole, the scores are high and the pace is only a small aspect of my trailer, so I do not feel that it matters too much. Perhaps if I had more time I would change it as in the real world, I would not want to discourage potential viewers of my film. Everyone said that would see my film, which only emphasises the fact that the trailer is successful as that’s it’s main purpose - to draw people in to see the film.

I wanted one particular theme to run across my main product and ancillary texts which was: Don’t let them in. This was originally just going to be my tagline for my poster; however I liked it so much that I decided to incorporate it in my film website which hadn’t been drafted at this stage. The only problem then was getting the theme to run into my trailer too. I decided to change some text in my trailer so that the tagline would fit. Originally, the tagline in the film was ‘How would you survive the end?’ but I later changed it to ‘Don’t let them in’ which would still be spread over four frames, one word in each. I like the change because apart from my trailer now fitting in which the same theme, I think the text appears more dramatic and even a little scarier. Although my film website does not contain the tagline ‘Don’t let them in’, the main image is of a zombie with their hands pressed against the glass as they are trying to get in. The image on my poster also connotates something trying to get in with the main image of a hand reaching through as if trying to enter or perhaps ‘get’ the audience.

The font of the title (image 8) of the film has also remained the same so that the texts and the trailer appeared to be promoting the same film. I discovered that the title of real films never changes font, only perhaps colour, so that audiences do not become confused. Also, in my trailer, there are very similiar shots to that of the main image on my website so that it connects the website to the trailer. There are many shots of 'hands' in my trailer too and this connects with the hand on my poster and the hands on the glass in the poster.

When I look back at my initial storyboards to the finished product, so much has changed. The main narrative parts have remained the same because they are fundamental to the trailer, while shorter shots were not.

In all, I think that my trailer has been successful. I spent a long time looking at other trailers so that conventions and techniques could be incorporated in my own work. The audience feedback shows that this has been successful as the audience feel that the all three pieces work together. If I had had more time, I think that I would have definitely tried to make my trailer more upbeat and exciting, as I feel that if this was a real trailer, it may be a little too slow and perhaps boring for some people. The process has been hard, and plagued by unfortunate events, however, I have managed to create a trailer and two ancillaries that I am exceptionally proud of.

6050 words approximtely.