Animatic - Research and Planning

This is our animatic for our teaser trailer. The shots are described in more detail but are liable to change should a shot prove to difficult to film or not work as well. Shots will also be added in when filming or during editing

'Lost soul' animatic

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Moodboard for Protagonists (Research & Planning)

Moodboard for Antagonist (Research & Planning)

Shot List (Research & Planning)

Shot #	Shot Description	Audio and Dialogue
1	Graphic shot of Institution #1 (Alliance)
2	Graphic shot of Institution #2 (IM Global)
3	Mid-Shot (MS) of the female character explaining the story of the haunted house.	Character tells the story – the shot shows her start but it becomes a voiceover in the next few shots.
4	Zoom in to a High Shot (HS) of the gate/wall.	Quiet, eerie music as the shot is shown and the character voiceover is heard.
5	There is an Establishing Shot (ES) of the house, which then becomes a Panning Shot (PS) of the house, possibly at a low angle to show its superiority. It then leads on to a PS of the grounds – showing isolation.	These shots have a voice over of the female character’s voiceover explaining the story and the history of the house/grounds in depth.
6	There is then a MS of one of the characters, who has just heard the story, who looks around at the others and dares them to spend the night in the grounds.	One character dares them all to stay the night there. There is a silence except for diegetic breathing.
7	Then a Close-Up (CU) of another character who accepts the dare.	Another character accepts the challenge.
8	A MS of the characters standing by the entrance with their sleeping things and a tent.
9	A Long Shot (LS) shows the characters settling in to their tent.	There is general conversation (diegetic) and are taking their situation in a light-hearted way.
10	The same LS, but a short while later when the characters are asleep.	No non-diegetic sound until the shadow of a ghost girl is reflected on side of the tent – there is a loud bang. A Few characters stir.
11	There is then a MS of the characters running from the tent, their faces then becoming CUs as they run towards the camera.	Diegetic sound – screaming.
12	A female character runs through the grounds, a MS shows this and she keeps looking back. She stops running and hides in a bush (CU), behind her the ghost girl appears and she is dragged in.	Non-diegetic sound: fast paced, suspense-filled music as she runs. Diegetic sound: heavy breathing as she hides away, then a scream as she is dragged into the wilderness by the ghost girl.
13	One character runs across the bridge and the camera zooms onto the opposite over-path to show the ghost girl.	Non-Diegetic sound: low and slow as she scans her surroundings.
14 - 20	There is then a montage of shots – merged together from the different locations at Polesden.	Non-Diegetic sound: continuing on from the previous shot – the music gets faster and higher in pitch. Diegetic: screams, few words, breathing
21	The shots fade out and the screen turns black.
22	Title card quickly fades into the screen	‘Lost Soul’
23	Vague titles fade in.	‘Coming Soon’
24	One final shot; one character holds the torch to their face, scares the group then laughs.	“Boo!”

Storyboard (Research & Planning)

Location Shots 6 (Polesden House)

Location Shot 5 (Polesden Surroundings)

Location Shots 4 (Polesden)

Location Shots 3 (Polesden)

Location Shots 2 (graveyard)

Location Photos 1 (church)

Research and planning grade

There is minimal research into similar products and a potential target audience.
There is minimal organisation of locations, actors, costumes and props.
There is minimal work on shotlists, storyboarding and draft scripting.
Research and planning is incomplete.
There is basic use of ICT.

6/20 = F

Targets:
There is simply not enough here. You must address all of the areas above.
Storyboarding should be done as a matter of urgency.
Trailer analysis should be completed, with an explanation as to which elements you want to replicate and why you think they are effective.
Photos of locations, costumes, props etc accompanied by an explanation as to why they are appropriate for your chosen genre.

Moodboard

Audience Research

Lighting & Sound

Lighting

Our film will consist mostly of dark, dim shots. But due to filming purposes, we will begin to record footage early evening as it will be too dark, and before closing time for Polsden Lacey. We have chosen to film it in dark secluded light as it is a popular cliche of horror films. They normally take place in a dark emptiness, which will really emphatise the isolation of our characters. With limited sight, it will also impact the audience as they will be left more clueless as to what is going on

Sound

We will be having the voiceover throughout part of our teaser trailer. However to make the audience feel uncomfortable, we will also be involving high pitched sounds. The reason for this is because these sounds are what people aren't used to hearing, it will make the audience feel stressed as it's a sound we don't associate to. 

So far we have thought of two ways to use our sounds efficiently. These are:

1. We hear the sound every so often, to make sure it doesn't overshadow our teaser trailer. As well as still being able to hear the dialogue clearly
2. Our second way to use our use of sound it to have a gradual build up. As the teaser trailer comes to a end, we will have the sound getting higher in pitch and louder, ending it dramatically, which will leave a bigger impact on the audience as it increases the tension.

Plot

For our teaser trailer, we have been debating which type of genre we were going to do, eventually we came to the conclusion that we were going to do a horror. Our film takes place with a group of teenagers. One of these characters starts to tell a story of a haunting which takes places in a building (Polsden Lacey) and the surrounding grounds. Throughout our trailer, we have a voiceover of the teenagers voice as they tell about the haunted grounds. We will be shown the area (pan shot)  

There are several things which will be needed in our horror film to make it more effective. Using these things will make the audience feel whats needed to help make it scary, without using these, the film may not have the impact we want on our audience;

• Camera angles - different angles gives us different feelings (low camera angle, making something seem dominant in a scene, useful in horror films that could possible represent an attacker)
• Lighting - dark lighting will be used in our film considering our genre is horror, this will hopefully make our audience feel scared while watching it, and characters in the film seem more vulnerable
• Sounds - such as high pitched noises, normally associated with horror. The sounds in horror films are a nessecity to give us the full on effect of what the audience should anticipiate from watching it
• Setting - dark isolated areas are the most common area to have in horrors, this could be because no one is there to help when vulnerable characters need it. It also puts the characters in one area to not confuse the audience and to make us aware of the area it's set in

Film Genre: Horror

As we have chosen to do a horror film for our piece of filming we need to look towards what makes films scary. In the horror film we will be needing to use dark lighting, this gives us a feeling of uneasiness, and we do not get a clear picture of what it happening. We can only see what the limited light is shown on. Often the high pitched sounds in the background will make the audience feel uneasy while watching it. The best environment for a good horror film is in rural settings. With little around the characters in the film, it means we feel the isolation and its often hard to seek help when needed.

Framing Shots

Soundtrack: Non-Copyright Music (Research & Planning)

In our recent media lesson, we experimented with a music programme called Cubase. The programme can record different instruments in layers and different times. For our genre, horror, we used eerie sounds and high pitch instruments, such as xylophone; which is a usual instument used in composing horror music. Music in horror films often lack melody and focus on filling the silence or increasing the suspense. Louder and tuneless sounds often add to the shock. There is often long pauses in trailers for horror music, such as the Insidious and the Woman in Black trailer. Eerie and simple music is normally used when the credits and inter-titles are shown.

 

Other ways to put music into our teaser trailer include http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ which allows the user to browse for non-copyrighted music by genre or feel and download it at no cost. Genres include: Horror, contempory, etc and optons in feel include mysterious, intense, eerie, etc.

Another similar website is http://www.audionautix.com/index.html . Once again there are genres and categories and they are pre-recorded with no suscription and no fees needed.

 

Trailer Analysis - Poseidon (Research & Planning)

Trailer Analysis 3 - Toy Story 3 (Research & Planning)

Trailer Analysis 2 - Woman in Black (Research & Planning)

Trailer Analysis - Bereavement (2011) (Research & Planning)

Similarities and differences between a teaser trailer and a trailer

TRAILER




TEASER TRAILER

AS Coursework Revision

Digital Technology

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

For the construction of out media coursework project, we used several different types of equipment. For our filming equipment we used a Canon camera to record our different scenes in which we would use to produce the opening scene to our work. We also used a tripod to steady our camera whilst filming. This came in handy on several occasions - it provided our opening scene with some useful shots, in which it gave our short clip some proffesional qualities.
As well as this, we used several programmes to help complete our work. Firstly we used Adobe Premiere Elements. This was probably the most frequently used programmes while doing our editing. The programme was used to allow our group to edit our footage. Taking out unnecessary footage and also adding final touches to our scene. Such as including background music and changing the contrast of our footage. It also let us use some effects, where we used a fade in and out effect to take us to different scenes of our opening clip. Another main programme that was used was blogger. This was to keep track of our work and allowed us to record our progress throughout the time of the project. It was very useful to be able to refer to the earlier work our group had done. It also let us see where we needed improvement. It was very convenient and let others also keep track of our progress. As well as Adobe and Blogger, we used youtube. This showed us many different videos, which all could be related back to our opening scene. The comparison between our footage and the clips we found on the internet helped to improve the overall standard of our final product. It let us get new ideas which was all put towards our work to help achieve a greater standard.
Several sites were also used, where we could get uncopyrighted music. We tested several different sounds, before deciding which one would be the final one to use with our completed product. Once we chose, we used Adobe to put the music with the video


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


Different media forms were essential throughout our work. Such as the use of youtube where we watched several extracts from films. When we were able to gather a basic understanding on what the theme of our work would be, we started watching youtube clips that we could use as a reference to our own work. Some of the clips were The Shining, The Ring and The Grudge. All of these clips were very useful, most likely due to the horror essence that could be related to our own work. 
Every clip we watched, had a horror element - which we were aiming for in our own work. Perhaps not to the high standard to the films we watched (although still pleased with our final result).  Watching the clips, helped to shape our story line. The darkness of the colours in the clips also was another deciding factor for when we edited our footage. As seen in our final product, we chose to keep the main structure of our footage in black & white
To decide our 'costumes' we analysed the clothing worn in the clips we saw on youtube. This helped to create the theme of our work, keeping the setting dark


Research and Planning

How effective was the research and planning that you under took in helping you create your media project?

Post-Production
What have you learned from your audience feedback?


Using conventions from real media texts
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Year 12 Blog

http://hannahevansmedia.blogspot.com/