Evaluation

This year, as our A2 media coursework, we decided on producing a film teaser trailer. To begin with, we researched existing film teaser trailers to get an idea of what a teaser trailer was and what we thought would make a entertaining and convincing trailer. Despite liking the majority of the teaser trailers from the action films and sci-fi genre we had to choose a more realistic genre and one that we could recreate ourselves. With this in mind we ruled out the possibility of producing an action, sci-fi or fantasy genre film and went with a horror/thriller genre as our choice. Despite choosing a very common genre we thought that we should make it as different to the existing films as possible whilst still being recognisable within the horror genre. We research a large number of horror genre teaser trailers to see what techniques we thought proved successful but were not used heavily throughout the genre and decided to use a “hand-held” style when shooting the trailer . It was clear that it was a very unusual and uncommon way to approach the horror genre but of the films we encountered during our research, the ones that had used this approach were very entertaining.
After deciding on the “hand-held” approach we decided to study these trailers to see the techniques used. We made notes on the different types of camera shots used, the music/score that went with the trailer, how the storyline of the film was portrayed and the recognisable horror conventions that you would associate with these type of films. We discovered that the music/score that went accompanied the trailers all had the same recognisable traits and that our own piece shouldn't be too hard to recreate. Another thing we noted that was although some of the trailers showed the antagonist or destructive force within the film, the trailers that we found more effective and enticing where the ones that only showed glimpses or no sign of antagonist or destructive force at all. This was a great way of building the suspense within the film and making people go to see the full movie just so they could discover it for themselves after already being drawn in by the trailer. When it came to researching the conventions of these films, we found it very easy to pick out key recognisable attributes that we would include in our own project.
Even though we have seen these conventions tried and tested and we know they help create a successful horror film, we decided we wanted not to stick to traditional conventions and use conventions that were seen less in popular film but were still affective. This meant we could create something that was typically from the horror genre, but also something that hadn't been seen often. With all this in mind we decided we still needed some of the main conventions used in horror films as they were key in producing our desired trailer.
Now after all the research had been completed, we had a very clear image of what we wanted to do with our project, we wanted to create a clear horror teaser trailer, but using unusual methods and less common conventions. Following this we started do piece together a plot for our trailer and began drawing up draft storyboards. We began with what would be included within each scene and what camera shots would be needed. To better understand which shots would be most effective, after deciding what happened within the scene we drew out a number of different ways of shooting the scenes and decided on which we liked most. If we still couldn't decide which shots to use we often filmed each scene a number of times from the different desired positions and then decided on the final shot when it came to editing. When we had the draw storyboards completely finished we went on to make a photo storyboard which we shot on location with the desired camera shots.
Now that all the planning was completed, we wanted to test the equipment we had before filming the final footage to see if we could get the desired effect we wanted to achieve, so we took the cameras to our filming location and tried and tested different light conditions and shot types to see if we could achieve our idea. After taking all the test footage we needed we tried some test editing to see if we could get closer to what we had imagined and through the use of the editing software available to us we were able to do so. We were now able to film our final trailer, but first needed to create a schedule of when we could get all of the people involved on location at the same time which was a struggle with people living I different towns with different commitments. We found that the most suitable time to film would be during free periods throughout the week and also a couple of nights straight after school. To begin with we started filming during the day in the free periods designated to get the opening scenes for the trailer but we soon found out that when we were filming at night the location had a much better feeling and was more suitable for what we wanted to achieve. This presented us with another problem as the location we were filming was in complete darkness at night so finding actors willing to help was an issue. We managed to overcome this problem by filming scenes with less people needed in them whenever people were unavailable and getting the larger scenes with more actors needed when we could get everyone together. This hindered us a lot when it came to editing as due to the filming stage taking so long we had less time to edit so were unable to re-film some important scenes due to actors letting us down.
When all the filming was finished we got all the footage we had filmed and began editing it together. We started by trimming all of the footage down and removing anything we did not need so we were left with all usable clips. We made sure that we had collected as much usable footage as possible as we had encountered problems in the past of not having enough footage which meant we had to use scenes we would have either re-filmed or not included where as this time we had more then enough footage, we collected around 20 minutes of usable clips for a 2 minute trailer. To begin with we created a draft of our trailer so we could get feedback from the rest of our class to see what we could improve and to see if we had achieved what we aimed for. The feedback we received about the trailer was very positive an although we hadn't yet created the music/score to go with the sequences it was still quite affective. After this we went straight on to creating our soundtrack/score for the trailer and due to our vast research of horror trailers we had a clear picture of what we needed to produce to enhance our trailer. When we had finished creating the soundtrack and added it to the finished footage we were happy that it did exactly what it was meant to, built suspense where needed and the tempo followed the film perfectly. We then asked our class for feedback again now that the trailer was complete and the feedback was even better now that the music had been added.
Now that the trailer was complete we started on the ancillary tasks. Having all 3 members of our team taking Art and Design as well as technology we felt very confident with this task as we were familiar with the technology we would use and have done tasks like this in the past. We mainly used a program called G.I.M.P(generated image manipulation program) which we all had past experience with and started on the Website homepage. We used a picture from our test footage which we then manipulated and created animated links for the website as well as an animated header. We also had to create a poster which we again used G.I.M.P. To manipulate a picture we took ourselves especially for the poster and created out own logo to appear on it as well.
Once all of the tasks were completed, both main and ancillary we had to produce the work to the class and receive feedback. The feedback we received was very positive indeed with only a few minor criticisms, our ancillary work in particular was very popular. There were only a few criticisms overall, one being the continuity of actors as some change throughout the trailer which as I explained earlier was something that was out of our control and the second was our overall acting ability which wasn't as good as it could of been.
Overall I think the class agreed that we had achieved what we had set out to do and at a very high standard so all of the extra time and work we put into the tasks was worth it. Despite the minor flaws within the final trailer I believe we created a very successful horror genre film with different techniques and conventions but still just as effective.