Film Magazine Covers...

For our film magazine cover, our plan is to portray the face of a dead body. We're going to get a picture of the woman of the couple in our teaser trailer, partly because we've planned to use the mans hand in the film poster, so wanted to use both memebers of the couple in our ancillary tasks. Also, in general women are stereotypically depicted as more vulnerable than men. Our plan is to have crosses drawn over the womans eyes to emphasise the idea that she is dead, similar to how people are shown in cartoons when they are dead or defeated, an example being when a pokemon is defeated in the cartoon show, its eyes turn in to spirals. We are also going to put blood on her face as though it is dripping down from her eye, as seeing red will instantly make a person think of blood, which coincides with conventions of the horror genre, which is well known for its use of blood.

Film Posters...

For the film poster that would go with our teaser trailer. We wanted to continue the theme of putting emphasis on the fact that the victims are thought to be dead, but turn out not to be, as the conclusion of the teaser trailer, and the title of the film will do. We came up with the idea of having a hand, laying limp on a silver surface, with a tag attached to the wrist. Our hope with this is to give the impression that its the hand of a dead body, with the silver surface being a slab in a mortuary that a dead body would be placed on, and the tag being a death tag for the bodies identification. Instead of putting a persons details on the death tag, we're going to have the title of the film and the release date, to ensure that it is clear to people that the poster is advertising a film. The shot will be a close up/extreme close up, in order to take none of the focus away from what is believed to be a dead hand. The tag will be an equally focused on, if not the main focus of the poster, as that is what really puts across the message that this hand belongs to a 'dead' body, and it also has the important information about the film. I drew a sketch of what we hope the final version of our film poster will look like...

Film Magazine Cover Research...

Film magazine covers need to be bold and stand out, as they are always going to be compared to the other magazines out at that time, and being the only thing a person will see when choosing which to buy, it is essential that the front cover is as appealing as it can be. Most films which are advertised on magazine covers, show a picture of the/one of the main characters, as they are usually the face that will remind people of the film. In all three covers i've looked at here, the main character is the only person on the cover, and looking at the camera, to make a connection with readers. The text on the front cover is also something that is made to stand out, as people wont just buy a magazine on the cover, the articles inside are what make people spend their money. On the cover for sherlock holmes, the title and subtitle for the film take up the entire bottom half of the page, as that is the focus of the magazine, and therefore the part which the magazine wants peoples eyes to be drawn to first. A common feature of a film magazine cover is to have a short phrase underneath or above the title of the film. For the Star Trek cover, the phrase 'The boldest and coolest film of 2009' is used to really sell the film, to anyone who is new to the film, and has yet to choose to go and watch it. Films with an existing reputation are able to rely less on attracting readers with words, like the Harry Potter cover. The title of the cover film is in a list of a number of films, and while it is the only one written in bold, it doesn't stand out in the same way my other two examples do. This is something which Empire magazine can afford to do however, as by the 6th film, Harry Potter is a film franchise with millions of fans already, and simply by showing the face of Harry (daniel radcliffe), anyone who is a fan of harry potter will recognise it and want to know what about harry potter is written inside.

Film Poster Research...

I've already looked at some posters from my previous research, but i wanted to take a closer look at some of the conventions of movie posters. Just from looking at a film poster you can almost always correctly guess what genre it is, just by its use of colour and pictures. The poster for drag me to hell is a typical horror poster. The picture depicts a girl screaming, being pulled down by the arm of what looks like a zombie or something, and the flames add to the scary nature of the picture. Also the dark,dull colour of the picture in the background emphasises the genre of the film as being serious. This is contrasted in the poster for Up. The poster is made up almost entirley of bright colours, those mainly coming from the balloons on the house, but also the clear sky in the background. As well as this, the little boy (Russell) is clearly smiling, suggesting the film is of a happy nature, the complete opposite of the poster for Drag Me To Hell. The poster for burn after reading puts its main focus on the famous names starring in the film. With just a plain white background, all eyes go directly to the pictures of the people in the film, who are all well known actors, like George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Films like this, with big names filling the cast, have the option to use that as the main selling point for the film. Films like Up, which is an animated film, dont have the option to sell the film by who is in it, as you dont see them in the film anyway, you only hear them. The film itself is formed around the concept of the house that gets lifted off the ground by lots and lots of balloons. When a film has an iconic, memorable scene, such as this, it is often used to advertise the film in all types of media, be it trailer or poster, as the majority of people who went to see Up, knew it to be the film with all the balloons carrying a house. Up also has the luxury of a very well known production company making it in Disney PIXAR, which is also put on the poster to attract any people who are fans of PIXAR, but haven't heard or seen of Up yet, knowing its a disney film will instantly gain the film audiences. Another common convention of film posters is to have a slogan, representing the story of the film, on the poster along with the title. For films like Drag Me To Hell, a couple of short sentences have been used to swiftly describe the character seen on the poster, but on the poster for Burn After Reading, a short slogan has been used to give people whose first recognition of the film is this poster, a small taste of what the film is about, it also often relates to the genre of the film.

Locations and Props...

We listed what room, and what props we would need for each of the shots we had put into our storyboards...

Filming our Teaser...

Our plan is to hopefully get all of the shots we need in one day, as everything we are filming takes place in the same location. If we cant get everything done in one day, we may have to arrange another day for filming, to get everything done.

Target Audience Research Conclusions...

We wanted to ask people form our target audience questions with the main aim of having their answers influence the way we went about creating our horror teaser trailer.

• Everyone we asked said they would want a horror teaser trailer to scare them, as without being able to scare its audience, no film can truly be considered a horror. To try and take into account this response, we hope that we can scare people in the way that paranormal activity scares audiences, in that it makes people fear that a similar event could happen to them. Teaser trailers themselves tend not to make audiences jump, as it is just a foundation for attracting people to go and watch the film, so what we want to do is to make our teaser trailer scary in terms of making them think that this is something which could happen to them.
• A mixture of pace was something that our target audience felt was important in a good teaser trailer, as the contrast between slow paced and fast paced keeps the audiences interest. This was something we had initially wanted to do, but the feedback we recieved confirmed in our minds that we wanted to mix both slow and fast paced shots to make viewers hearts race, and intrigue them.
• Flashbacks were something that everyone we asked liked, as they felt it gave them more information about the background of the film, and also helps explain some of the confusing aspects of a film. Using flashbacks is something we definately want to do in our teaser trailer, to add an interesting aspect to the trailer.
• Our target audience told us that they prefer a teaser trailer to only show a little bit of footage of the film, as it means that less is given away. We respect this view and in some ways agree with it, but we feel that we want to use a good amount of footage, just to give the audience a chance to get a feeling for what the film is about, and hopefully want to go and see it. To try and meet in the middle on what the target audience told us and our personal wants, we know that we dont want to give away anything to do with the ending of the film, so that the conclusion of the story is kept a secret.
• There was mixed response to the usage of cliffhangers, some saying theyt didnt like not knowing all the facts, and some saying they liked being able to decide what for themselves what they think has happened. We want our trailer to have cliffhanger ending, mainly to give viewers that extra push to go and watch the film, as cliffhangers often leave audiences dyeing to know more.

New Target Audience Research...

Certificate...

Choosing a certificate for out film was made quite easy as we chose who our target audience would be first. By choosing to target the film at 16-24 year olds, we left ourselves with only one realistic option. However, this is just one of a number of reasons why we chose to make 'Presumed Dead' certificate 15. Taking in to account existing horror films, every film we looked at, both in teaser trailer research, horror trailer conventions research, and in the work we had done on our parody idea, was certificte 15.

• The Strangers
• The Ring
• Paranormal Activity
• Drag Me To Hell
• Mirrors
• One Missed Call

All of these films share the same genre as the film our teaser trailer will advertise, and some like Drag Me To Hell and The Ring involve scenes of a much more disturbing nature than anything we plan to include in our teaser trailer, or anything that our film would include in general, therefore meaing that only in a lack of good judgement would we choose to give 'Presumed Dead' a certificate any higher than 15, and as we'd previously agreed that aiming at a younger audience (12 and under) would be unwise, the only certificate we're left with is 15. Rating the film a 15 means that anyone within the age group of our target audience will be able to watch the film in the cinema, and also shows to anyone else thinking of watching the film, that any pre-conceptions of the film being unbelievably scary and gory simply based on the genre are untrue.

Target Audience...

Despite changing our idea for our teaser trailer, we didn't think that we needed to change our original target audience. We originally chose to target 16-24 year olds, for the main reason that our entire film was based around mocking horror films, and while not intentionally aiming to scare people with the film, the characters themselves were based on characters from real horror films, so to target the film at a younger audience would of been unwise and unrealistic. This is one of the reasons we chose to aim at the same target audience, as by changing to do an actual horror film, this was even further reasoning to avoid targeting the film at young people. We've chosen to aim mainly at the 16-24 year olds not only because of the genre of the film, but most importantly for the fact that they are the most frequent cinema go-ers. While there is no reason why our film would not appeal to an older audience, for the film to be as commercially successful as it can be, it needs to meet the criteria of a film that young adults would want to go and watch in the cinema. This age group are generally more interested in watching horror films at the cinema than any other age group, as the excitement of seeing who will be more scared by a film is something that 16-24 year olds get caught up in more than anyone else. The purpose of choosing a target audience is to focus your attention further in one particular direction, which we hope to do, while still trying to make 'Presumed Dead' a film that appeals to an older generation, as well as the young adults the film will aim to attract.