Evaluation 4: What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Evaluation 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real-life media products?

Cold Blood: Directors' Featurette

Cold Blood: Final Cut (ENSFC Horror Trailer)

Evaluation Screening & Feedback

Side by Side Magazine Analysis

Side by Side Poster Analysis

Manual Blood Imagery (Prints)

Below are 3 different manual creations I made for my (Cold Blood) Poster design. I sprayed fake blood on card stock then let the droplets run down the paper to imitate the idea of blood running down. The purpose of this was so I could scan it in then blend it over the poster, using this technique allows me to bring something new to the Poster design.

Original Photos

Below is a gallery with 60 of my own original images, including those used for my magazine and poster along with many other poses, expressions and experiments

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Original Photos (Poster)

Above is a shot I got of the Lizard glove holding a flask prop, used in the trailer. The flask is filled with red liquid and on Photoshop I will enhance the reds of the liquid to connote blood. Along with enhancing, I will highlight the greens and make them stand out, I chose this pose as it shows the beasts hand and the grip on the blood filled flask is threatening and portrays the film well.

Here is a screenshot from the trailer itself, a shot which I beautifully captured where the creature is holding up a victim, we see him physically lift the victim. This screenshot I chose to use to show the beast in the poster without revealing what it actually looks like. This gives people a teaser and makes them feel the need to watch the trailer/film to find out what he looks like. Also when uploaded on Photoshop, the left half is missing parts and is more grainy, showing the distortion of the victim and the effects the "Lizard" is having on them.

Original Photos (Magazine Cover)

Above is the official image for the magazine I used that I shoot in a studio setting, I featured the two characters Michael and Jason. Michael is in a lab coat holding a needle with green liquid, his pose and expression show he's the sinister character. Jason is wearing the clothing in which he wears in the trailer along with the Lizard glove and a more angry, attacking seemed expression. This photo perfectly captures their characteristics in the trailer. Having it shot in front of a black backdrop keeps within the location of the trailer, a dark confined setting.

Above is the poster I made for the trailer which is too featured on the magazine cover as a free poster, this will capture viewers as "FREE" gives viewers a sense of owning something without paying, and a poster is particularly useful for teenagers as they collect them.

Practice Trailer

Poster Photoshop Developments

Film Poster

Magazine Photoshop Developments

Film Magazine Cover

Cold Blood: Props

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Above is a gallery full of the props we used in the trailer, ranging from science equiptment such as glass beakers, test tubes etc to manual drawings, drawn in the perspective of the main character (Michael).

Behind the Scenes (Photoshoot)

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Focus Group Screening

Cold Blood (Rough Cut)

Cold Blood (Rough Cut: Focus Group)

Cold Blood (Rough Cut: Focus Group Feedback)

Cold Blood: Green Eye (Rendered Test: After Effects)

Cold Blood: Practice Horror Trailer (Rough Cut)

Cold Blood: Webisode #4

Test #4 for Cold Blood, these were rendered like this to gain a small feedback from selected people to get an idea of what we can do to improve for the first official cut (rough cut).

This fourth and final test is shorter yet is an improvement from the last test as it flows more as a highlights trailer rather than a scene trailer/short film.

Cold Blood: Webisode #3

Test #3 for Cold Blood, these were rendered like this to gain a small feedback from selected people to get an idea of what we can do to improve for the first official cut (rough cut).

This third test was where we began piecing together the clips yet the result made the trailer seem more like a short film. Yet this test also shows us how it pieces together and the flow of it all.

Cold Blood: Webisode #2

Test #2 for Cold Blood, these were rendered like this to gain a small feedback from selected people to get an idea of what we can do to improve for the first official cut (rough cut).

This second test included a more dramatic piece of music, which includes loads of cuts to allow breaks as well as gaps for intertitles. The music is also in 2 sections, a slightly calmer half then a heavy dramatic ending.

Cold Blood: Webisode #1

Test #1 for Cold Blood, these were rendered like this to gain a small feedback from selected people to get an idea of what we can do to improve for the first official cut (rough cut).

This first test included a more "music box" themed type of music which then becomes a "Halloween" sort of piece. This fit the test well but didn't provide enough drama for the kidnap part to be tension building.

Cold Blood: Mixing Chemicals (Rendered Test)

Cold Blood: Cast and Crew Photo

Directors

Michelle Connop and Brad Lacey

Lauren Peace and Beth Quittenton

Actors

 Harry Manning and Lewis Hearn

Assistant and Body Double

 Kayleigh Mulholland and Alex Holmes

Cold Blood: Silicone Mask Test (Health and Safety)

Composite Effects (CFX) Viper Mask worn by Alex Holmes (Stunt Double) as a Health and Safety test for when the actor (Harry Manning) has to wear it, this is also to show the movement and realism of the mask.

Cold Blood: Health and Safety Report

Cold Blood: Shooting Schedule

Cold Blood: Shotlist

Cold Blood: Moodboard

Cold Blood: Choice of Trailer & Synopsis

Choice of Trailer:

50% Highlights (Beginning) 50% Scene (Ending)

Beginning of trailer catches attention of the viewers, making them react to the highlights of the film and become visually interested whereas the second half of the trailer is presented as a scene trailer, showing more of the main characters purpose and also a transformation scene ending on a jump scare. The highlights are to start the trailer off with a narrative and the scene is a slow montage which fastens up when the transformation is shown, ending on a jump scare.

Film Synopsis:

An 18 year old named Michael is a target for bullies and has been his whole life, at college he studies Science and dedicates his life to the study of reptiles and amphibians, also known as Herpetology. Michael studies Herpetology in his lessons and finds out that the creatures DNA includes Autotomy, allowing them to regrow cells and limbs. This drives him to the idea of experimenting with the DNA of the Reptiles and stealing important documents from his classroom allowing him to create a substance to give a human Lizard genetics. The idea of him changing humans into a more developed and intelligent life form leads him into kidnapping his former bullies and using them as victims of his experiments.

The results of these experiments leave his victims tortured and killed, each with some form of Lizard feature as he knows the substance is working, just something isn't right. When he finally comes to mending the substance he kidnaps the final victim with chloroform, his most hated bully and injects them with the Lizard DNA mixture, this leads to the victim suffering and in pain yet the DNA kicks in and heals the pain, yet the heal also provides mutations and transforms the victm into a Lizard hybrid creature. The final element of the mixture erases the victims thoughts, and his only new purpose is to obey Michael. 

Cold Blood: Stereotypical Fan

Class Poster Idea (Audience Research)

(Click to Enlarge)

The concept of having a young girl kidnapped is always devastating, specifically for the parent audience, this kind of thing relates to real life occurrences and relates to the context of Madaline McCane, it taps into the fear of threat to your family, yet the kidnapper in this story treats the child like his own, he doesn't harm nor treat her badly. We received a lot of positive feedback from the class and the most effective concept they liked the most was this idea of the daughter being treated perfectly, and there's more to the story than the kidnap, her discovery of what he does to human, how he gets revenge on the world for the death of his real daughter. The use of different age ranges in this story concept allows us to suggest the idea it's a more varied film, engaging onto an audience of a vast majority of ages. 

The only one negative about the concept is how the story needs to be explained simpler for the trailer, yet through the use of inter-titles and narrative this should easily be fixed.

Update

We've decided to change the concept overall due to the problem of getting younger actors and having permission of what we can and couldn't do. To make this problem a whole lot easier we've changed the narrative from "Daddy's Little Girl" to "Cold Blood". A group decision we were happy to make as this new concept allows us to experiment with something hardly seen in the Horror Genre much.

The basic concept is a teenager who the audience would normally feel sympathy for as he has been bullied kidnaps and experiments with his bullies, trying to mutate them into a beast using Reptile DNA. The trailer will include a series of failed attempts while also showing the success of the final attempt and we will include make-up to compare with Tom Savini while also using a already purchased Silicone Mask from CFX (Composite Effects) to give the trailer a sense of realism. The concept bases on Herpetology, Bullying and Transformation.

Below is the updated poster, showing the concept of the Lizard beast (Silicone Mask).

6 Panel Practice Storyboards

Horror Sub-Genre Pie Chart

My favorite sub-genre is Psychological horror as it relies on fears, guilt, beliefs and such, relying on these causes the viewer to become more attached to the film and it'll end up terrifying them more. The use of supernatural plots and characters brings a wider variety of story lines alongside tension. The narrative and concepts of these types of films always make the story attatch to the viewer, becoming a personal obsession and fear. For example, watching the film Mirrors (2008) directed by Alexandre Aja left me naturally avoiding mirrors, having a fear of them in case this super natural occurrence from within the film I watched was to happen.

Having films that create this type of thoughts and processes in the viewer means it's successful in pulling off it's intention, being a scary movie and have it becoming a constant thought to the fan.

Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2015) Solo Trailer Review #3

Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death Trailer

40 years after the first haunting at Eel Marsh House, a group of children evacuated from WWII London arrive, awakening the house's darkest inhabitant.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

The trailer opens with aerial shots of London, yet we see the smoke and atmosphere of World War II, this immediately sets us the time and location and also refers to the historical context of the World War II. The music goes from emotional, due to the disaster to eerie and tension building, we’re then introduced to a series of close-ups which go well with the type of parallel music playing. A collision cut is played out unexpectedly as the scene goes quite yet a slight sound effect is played when the female looks out the window, telling us the scene is all we need to witness at the moment and suddenly a crow hits the window and the sound effect is amplified to engage the viewer before the trailer gets intense. The trailer goes quite, with sudden spikes of noise coming from the toys and such. Another jump scare is shown through collision cutting, keeping to the horror and making it fulfil its theme. We’re then introduced to diegetic music from the music player, which becomes bridge music as it plays throughout the next series of shots. 

The pace of the trailer picks up slightly, with toys inter-cutting throughout to keep the eeriness engaging the viewer. A boy starts to narrative the idea behind the woman in black amongst the song, we see what he’s explaining, and this is effective as its target audience can see what is meant. The music starts to act like a broken record, and synchronizes with the shots as we see the disasters in the film play out, a montage creating an emotional effect. A crackling sound effect plays over the woman in blacks face, not presented as a jump scare, but still effective as we see her clearer. The ending of the trailer is a trick played on the audience, as we see a hospital scene and what looks to be a harmless woman approaching the female characters point of view shot holding a baby but this peaceful part is depleted when the nurse lifts her head and screams, waking the audience up for the final time in the trailer.

Which aspect of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

This trailer pretty much fulfilled and accomplished presenting its theme, yet having the woman in blacks face plotted around the trailer for the viewers to see removes the reveal of her at the end, it makes her face less horrifying and shocking. Other than this, the narrative was explained fairly poor towards the beginning and this didn't leave a strong enough beginning to intrigue the viewers.

What do you rate the trailers score? Why did it receive that mark?

 I rate this trailer an 8.5, it provides a variety of different shot types played out in a collision cut and montage to keep us interested, and the jump scares were played out perfectly as they weren't obvious for the target audience to spot, until the last depleted reveal. This film is also a sequel to the first Woman in Black, where the story had left no open ending, this leaves the audience who watched the first to become confused yet interested in how the ending of the first film allowed this woman in black to continue her revenge. The target audience is around 15-20 year olds, and the first film being a mainstream horror for teenagers is sure to help this film deliver.

Phantasm (1979) Solo Trailer Review #2

Would You Rather (2012) Solo Trailer Review #1