Creativity

how did you use media forms to come up with something new and original? 

Initially we researched different trailers and the conventions of different genre’s, from this we decided we wanted to create an action trailer as we thought It would be a good way of making the film look high budget and exiting. However due to practicalities and personal opinions, we decided we would rather create a horror/thriller trailer as we were more familiar with the conventions of this trailer and we also felt more of a personal connection with the genre. To make it creative and different, we decided to hit a new audience of 15 year olds by bringing in characters that they could connect and grow a relationship with. We also used a young child to create a more daunting theme. Our initial idea’s came from influences of other films we had watched such as the lovely bones and taken. We felt like the idea of a young girl growing up in a broken  home and then growing and moving in to a house where she isn’t safe showing the importance of family.

As a group we have a very good connection being friends already, it allowed us to come up with a good idea for our film. We made a brainstorm of ideas so that everyone’s ideas were heard and we could have a wide range of genre’s before we devised our final piece. By using Adobe premiere pro, it allowed us to make our production more visually interesting and imaginative. We could add in fades to black to create suspense and interest and therefore more professional. To appeal to the audience, we decided that we would add some music that would get their hearts racing and make the fear the trailer. We made sure the music have a large build up leading towards the kidnapping. Additionally we wanted to make the titles snappy and interesting in order to capture the audiences attention and inform them about the qualities of the film- for example the titles of other films that were made by the same distributer.

Our intended outcome of this film was to make our young audience have a sense of thrill and dangers, looking at the young girls grow and get in danger from a kidnaper. We also wanted to send across the message to youth’s that you must be careful being outside alone in the dark. Our main aim was to put the audience of the edge of their seats, by achieving this we added tension building non-diegetic sounds, fast paced editing, prevalence on the main character, shots of the kidnaper hiding around the house, and many other codes and conventions of a horror/thriller movie. During A2 we have developed some of these skills and devised ways of building tension into the kidnaper. Music is a key component in the process of creating a tension filled trailer/opening two minutes. During the process of moving into A2 I discovered new pieces of music and what would work and what wouldn’t. There has to be a steady beat to cut the shots too as it gives the piece a professional edge and keeps the continuity.

Target audience reaserch

Who would the audience for your film be?

Due to our film having an age certificate of 15, this set us a good idea that our target audience would range for the 15 to younger adults such as 22. After doing research of the demographics for the majority of horror movies we found that this age category was the most appropriate for our trailer. This is successful as allowing our target audience to be 15 allows a wider range which could potentially increase profits. The typical ratio to watch our trailer would mainly be girls, this could be represented in the female cast, relating about a troubled girl. Therefore,many females could relate to this character and find this as a coping mechanism to escape from their own lives.

Although, the percentage of males watching horror movies can still represent huge interest in this genre, but this could just be because males and females are more likely to attend a date to the cinema to watch a movie, stereotypically for the female to cuddle up to the boy. As we found out from our survey our target audience enjoy horrors that create a mystery as their favourite TV programme Sherlock Holmes, we uncovered the meaning of this and it was proven they found the mystery in the programme engaging, getting them excited to watch next weeks episode. Our target audience listen to quite a lot of pop music, in the charts, to keep up with the trends in day to day society.This allows them to have something in common and mingle as a friendship group providing a topic for conversation.

We tried to create this mysterious effect in our trailer by having a secretive villain out to get this young girl, where hes face in never exposed throughout the whole trailer, only as man with a black figure. This young age category tend to shop again in the most trendy places such as River Island, Misguided, Topman where it allows them to go out and interact and enables them to become a fashionable idol whether it is only in the environment of school or work.

Digital Technology

 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research?

We used a Sony CX405 Handycam camera to film our production as there is high quality footage. Having a good definition of the camera allows the shots to be clear and sophisticated making it seem like a high budget movie. Also the camera had different effects on it to suit the lighting of surrounding and time of day. This helped us to create the best image and work around the change in lighting during the shoot. Additionally the camcorder also recorded audio very well and therefore we didn’t need to prerecord the audio. I decided to use Adobe Premiere Pro software in order to edit this trailer. Initially, I was going to use Premiere Elements however it believe that Pro has a more sophisticated and advanced software and can allow  me to be more flexible with the editing. I did, however, find it slightly hard to work around the new programme as I edited at home and therefore didn’t have a teachers help to edit the piece. 

Some cons of the digital technology during this process were I shot some of the opening images on an iPhone, as I found some establishing shots of the location that I wanted for my film, while walking to school one morning. This therefore meant that the image was slightly different as the cameras have different quality of footage. Another problem we occurred with the compatibility of the camera to the editing software was the difference in lighting, despite remaining in the same location. This was disappointing because despite how precisely i made the cut, the lighting was still disorientated which made it look like we changed location or lighting, affecting the theme of continuity.However some of the pros during the process were that I spotted some nice shots while out and about and managed to create a really nice opening of the film. Even though the iPhone was as high quality, I managed to sharpen up the image in order to make the shots look seamless to the rest of the film. Another element that made the opening two minutes effective were the diegetic sounds I achieved by placing the camera outside in the garden to capture the sounds of the birds. The audio on the camera is very clear and picks up sounds from very far away. I played the sounds over the top of the non-diegetic music to create an earie atmosphere. 

In A2 I have developed some of the skills I gained in Asand became more confident in the technologies I used. Although I used the same camera in As in A2, I have been able to experiment with new angles and setting within the camera and have become more experienced with how the camera works. Additionally I have learned how to successfully use a tripod when using the camera to create steady and professional footage. When looking back at the opening two minute I realise how armature it looks compared to my trailer this year due to the carelessness of the shots, I understand the tripod controls this. Additionally last year I had problem when it came to the lighting changes as I filmed it in different times in the day. However this year I filmed two or three shots in the same time of day so the lighting was the same and therefore made the trailer seamless and professional looking. Another skill that I discovered when moving into A2 was the use of transitions of the software we used. As the trailer had to be quick and snappy, we used fades to black to create suspense and also to build tension. The last thing that  became better was the use of the premiere pro as I became more confident in how to use it and also discovered some new tools within the programme.  

Character reaserch

How does your media product represent particular social group?

This is our protagonist character Serafina, She appears very innocent and childish with her school uniform. As she is the victim of the danger within the family the audience feel empathy for her and therefore dislike the parents. by having a young child as the protagonist at the beginning, helps the audience understand her paranoia when she grows up and therefore allows the audience to understand her like from beginning to end.
By showing the journey of her life and the obstacles she has to overcome, the audience feel a greater connection to her and therefore can feel more empathy when things go wrong. we decided to show her laughing along with her family to show that she is a very sweet girl who has a very innocent personality and then juxtapose it with the scenes of her parents arguing and telling her to go away. We thought we would keep her in her school uniform as it created an element of normality from the audience and they would feel the connection from when they were younger.

This is the young girl from the lovely bones, she is the protagonist within the film and plays the victim in a kidnapping. We believe our character follows the same conversions as this girl as they are very innocent looking and are separate to the rest of society. Our character isn't blonde like this one, often the blondness connotes innocents and angelic nature however, Serafina is very young and beautiful and therefore gives the same effect. In the lovely bones, she has parents that often argue and cause he to get very upset, this follos a similar sequence to our film as we thought it had a good impact on the audience.

Elle film

Final magazine cover

Magazine cover

This is the magasine cover that our group made in order to promote our trailer- Elle. 
We used a red title at the top of the magazines. The theme of the rich red runs throughout the whole cover, this makes the cover look organised and coordinated. 
The same font was also used for all of the advertisement along the side. This also created a formal and sophisticated look for the cover. 

We also reasserted some of the key aspects from magazines such as the bar code at the bottom, the date the magazine was issued, the price of the magazine and the exclusive stories to catch the audiences attention. The word 'Exclusive' is much larger than the rest of the writing, this is to get the audience to focus directly on the words. The word's "It's Free" and "Win" are also red and slightly larger, this will capture the audiences attention. 

The image on the background of the magazine is one of our characters from the the film. This will allow the audience to connect with the themes of the play when viewing the cover. The title 'Elle' is also very big and has a different font to the rest of the the font. This shows the importance of the film.

Final film poster