Creating Our Poster

Due to group members being absent we have been unable to fully complete our poster, this is because we have not had the pictures needed. Instead we have print screened the clown mask from the internet, in photoshop I then cut the head of the clown out and copied into Adobe Illustrator, within this I was able to make the background around the mask black. I then brought the picture back forward so it was just the head placed on a black background. I then used a sketch affect, this made the clown mask black and white and looked slightly blurry. I have also filled in the eyes with red, this makes the clown look more scary and fits in with the way it looks in the teaser trailer.

Our poster is not yet finished as the font we are using, 'circus ornate' does not let the file save, therefore we need to download the font again so it works in Adobe Illustrator.

We have now completed our poster using an image of the clown mask. We placed the image in photoshop and used the magic eraser to erase the surrounding background, then we used the magnetic lasso to select the clowns head. To increase the scariness of the clown we filled the lips in black and also made the eyes and nose red, by making the eyes red this makes the clown stand out. We also blurred the edges of the image which made it blend better with the black background. The font we have used for the tag line matches the font used in the teaser trailer which is circus ornate, we downloaded this from the website dafont.com.

Here is the finished item:

Film Poster Analysis

I have chosen this horror movie poster as the villain is a clown which directly links to our teaser trailer. The movie is called 'drive-thru', the title is clear and is written in red, the same colour as the clowns nose and lips; which looks like dripping blood. The tag line is quite long but is spread out for affect, this makes the audience look at the poster for longer. However the tag line is quite cheesy, but this is a convention for a horror movie, for example the tag line for Saw II is "Oh yes, there will be blood". We have selected a tag line that relates to a circus clown "Welcome to the greatest show on earth" however, similar to this movie poster we could expand our tag line to make the audience look at the poster for longer.

The clown being close up to the camera is creepy and makes it seem as if it is looking right at the audience, this makes the context of the poster eye catching, we could use this idea with the mask and the background could introduce the idea of a haunted circus, or the stalking clown. The poster outlines the plot and tells the audience that there is going to be death. The poster doesn't have a release date which entices the audience further, we could use this affect as it is only a poster for a teaser trailer and therefore is not meant to give too much away.

The second poster I have chosen to analyse is the Friday the 13th poster, which I chose for my marketing campaign. I think this poster really stands out as I doesn't give anything away except the release date however it is still clear that it is for horror movie as the hockey mask is known from the original Friday the 13th movies. I think this is a good poster to use as inspiration for our poster, as the clown mask stands out as being something creepy.

Magazine Cover Analysis

I have selected these magazine covers to analyze as I feel that the first one relates to our movie and the second one stands out and will give us positive ideas for our magazine cover. The first poster has a clown on the front cover and the subtitle is "what made clowns go bad?" this links back to the idea that clowns used to be kids entertainment and are now commonly used in horror movies as the villain; this is similar to the story line in our teaser trailer as the clown still has features that would be similar to an entertaining clown such as balloons, but it is also presented as a stalker, and the clowns mask is the main feature that links it to being a horror movie.

I think the top poster really stands out as there is a black background and the main colour of the clowns face is white, these colours contrast and the subtitle is also able to stand out because it is written in white. The clown looks really life like, I like this feature as it is made to be more creepy, I think we should use this feature for our magazine cover to exaggerate the scariness of the clown.

I chose the second magazine cover as it really stands out, and creates a clear understanding of what is included in the magazine without over crowding the cover. The picture is clear and again just shows the scary characters face, this is a good way of introducing the characters that are involved in the movie. The title of the movie is clearly written below, with a tag line underneath to entice the audience into the sequel, this is a good form of advertising for people to research about the first part of the movie.

The normal features of the magazine are included for example the bar code however the main feature of the magazine covers are the villainous characters, I think we should use this feature for our magazine cover to make the clown stand out to the reader.

Teaser Trailer Codes and Conventions

To be able to make our own teaser trailer we have to first understand the code and conventions of teaser trailers. "A teaser trailer is unlike a typical theatrical trailer, they are usually very short in length lasting between 30–60 seconds and often contain little, if any, actual footage from the film itself. It is usually a shortened version of a theatrical trailer. A teaser trailer is usually released long in advance of the actual film. One of the main reasons for the trailer to be called a teaser trailer is because it teases the audience by releasing its teaser trailer one to one and a half years before release of the actual film."

I found this information on wikipedia, through searching on google.

Another feature of teaser trailers is to not necessarily tell the story of the movie but to let the audience know when it is coming out. I found this website which will help to understand further what makes a successful teaser trailer, this way we can look at making our trailer as similar to a professional teaser trailer as possible.

This website shows top ten teaser trailers and why they are successful.

http://www.noisetosignal.org/film/2007/08/top-ten-teaser-trailers.php

My favourite teaser trailer from this website is 'The Incredibles' although this does not relate to the teaser trailer that we are creating it gives us a good ideas that will be useful. This trailer introduces only one character from the movie and doesn't really give much away apart from the fact that maybe Mr Incredible is no longer the super hero he used to be, the trailer is entertaining and lets the audience know the genre is a comedy. We need to take this into account that we must make sure that the audience are able to establish that the genre of our teaser trailer is a horror.

Magazine Research

We purchased this magazine due to its 'Horror Genre' specific articles in this issue. These included actors and actresses who have been type casted for horrors aswell as horror stories, and instructions on how to produce your own horror film for under £45. The images included were inspiring and the articles were extremelly helpful.

Shortcuts We Have Learnt

Whilst using Final Cut Express, Soundtrack and Livetype we have learnt different shortcuts on the mac.

For example:

'B' for blade, 'I' for in point and 'O' for out point when capturing shots.

'Space bar' to play and pause the movie, 'apple key and R' to render and 'apple P' to play before it has been rendered. 'Apple key and S' to save the project.' Apple and tab' to switch to a different window, this helped when importing the titles to final cut express from live type.

Title Sequences

We used the website dafont.com to download a circus looking font for our teaser trailer, we found one called circus ornate, that fits with the look of an old fashioned circus poster. Which in turn suits our USP (Unique Selling Point) of a fear of clowns and circuses. In order to have the mask effect we had to change the composition of the shot we wanted to mask to 'Travel matte: Alpha' and imported the text from LiveType. We chose to pan the text from right to left so that it is easier to read and also fits with the movement behind the mask. By considering all of this we improved the consistency and flow of our sequence.

Teaser Trailer Rough Cut Screening

Today we showed the rough cut of our teaser trailer, without the soundtrack, and receiver honest, objective, and constructive feedback of how to improve it. The overall comments were positive, our main strengths were the use of costume, having the conventions of a horror movie, good use of title sequences, and well framed shots.

However there are improvements that need to be made, the main one being that it is too much like an opening sequence rather than a teaser trailer. Therefore we need to shorten some shots, and take more risks with the editing. Also another criticism was that the titles were not clear enough to read, we might need to slow down the timing add some special affects. The final improvement is to have different ranges of shot.

We are going to take this criticism on board and try to edit our trailer to make it less like an opening sequence. We will do this by cutting the shots shorter and maybe adding more titles to break up the sequences.

Lighting Issues

Due to a lack of preperation and also due to cancellations from actors/actoresses our planning schedule was incorrect and key lighting rules were not followed. A lack of equiopment also hindered our night time filming as the only light source available was a small 200watt torch. This ment that the camera could not be place further than 4 metres away from the scene, this limited our shots to medium shots and close ups.

Sound Research

Non-Diegetic sound: from looking at clown horror films the typical trend included typical circus high pitched music, voice overs, screaming, footsteps

Diegetic sound: all of the films that we used to look at different sounds all included these sounds; , heavy breathing,shouting,

Problems With Filming

Our first set of actors decided they didn't want to be in our film trailer so changed groups without letting us know which means they were unreliable, so we had to find some other actors in time to capture the shots before we had to hand in our rough copy.

Zoe became ill, so we had to change the story-line because she wasn't able to come to all the filming.

Whilst filming in the priory park we started to lose light as it was getting late so the shots we wanted to get had to be changed because we had to find light, but in the end this was resolved because it started to look effective having silhouettes of the clown instead of seeing the clown in broad daylight.

Directors Notes for Actors

Directors Notes

Charactors
Evelyn – Innocent unsuspecting college student that is the main target of the ‘evil clown’. Evelyn will be the first character to have suspicions that she is being followed. Main character. Timid and shy character that will become the ‘last girl’ as in typical slasher horror films.
Zoe- Evelyn’s practical joker friend. Zoe will only appear partially in the trailer as she is a sub-character. Loud and talkative, polar opposite to Evelyn’s character.
Wiggles the Clown – Silently confident stalker.

Plot Summary
Evelyn is a performing arts student who first has suspicions something is up while working late at college in the props room. The evil clown from the travelling circus that’s just arrived in town has picked her as his next target.

Shots We are Filming

Reigate Priory Wood: We originally chose this location as it would be really creepy, and a good setting for a horror movie, however we had problems when filming as the lighting was inefficient.

Reigate Priory Park: We chose the park as the a shot of the clown swinging on the swings would be really scary, also at night the lighting is slightly better than the woods, this is also an ideal location for the characters to be walking through at night therefore it is realistic that the clown could be stalking her.
Morrisons in Reigate: Morrisons in Reigate is also another realistic location for the clown to be stalking the characters.
Reigate High Street: The idea of the clown skipping through Reigate high street, whilst getting terrified looks from passers by would be a good convention for a horror movie.

Posters for Trailer and Marketing

One poster is for use in our actual trailer as a key prop.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to edit and manipulate a photo that had been taken earlier by the group.

I adjusted the contrast and brightness to remove all non-essential features from the image so that only the victim and the villain were present. A red colour filter was added to the entire image to fit with the horror genre and other marketing posters we saw during the background research.

'Old Circus' font was downloaded from www.dafont.com and the tag line, release date and our groups name were all inserted over the top layer of effects on the image.

Finally i 'smoothed' all the text so it did not look like it had been typed over the image but into it.

Poster Ideas

We have been designing a circus poster for our film, it will firstly be shown as a normal happy poster advertising the circus, the poster will then switch to a different poster with the same background but with the scary clown mask we are using as the main picture.


Here are some examples we have found that have given us ideas for our poster:

The conventions of this poster is showing the friendly side to clowns, and how they are usually entertainment for children at the circus. The bright colours used connote a positive atmosphere, and the quote underneath 'the children's favourite clown' conveys this clown is friendly.

We chose this poster as we liked the background as it was similar to a circus marquee, we also liked the magicians hands in the middle which conveyed mystery and magic.

These are some posters that we will use to inspire our scary poster:

Shot List

1. Shot duration: 22 seconds
Description: Lionsgate introduction
Transition: Fade into black
After the introduction applause will begin and there will be a voice over saying “welcome to the greatest show on earth”

2. The first shot is a mid shot of the clown walking down the street carrying balloons that are dragging along the floor; it will be set at night in Reigate high street. The music is going to be scary clown music; the shot will then cut to a close up of one of the red balloons that will pop and splatter red paint.

3. The red “blood” will splatter onto the clown poster, the first poster shown will be of a friendly clown. This will be a point of view shot of someone looking at the poster the poster will then flicker in black and white and the change to the scary clown face. The circus music will begin to cut out, as if the track is broken, and then stop to silence and the screen will fade to bright red.

4. The next shot is of the tagline that is “Trick or treat?” which will be shown in black writing on the red background. Creepy background music will begin.

5. The next shot is of the front door and the doorbell ringing someone comes to answer the door and another point of view shot of him or her opening the door, this will change quickly to an extreme close up of the clown mask with a loud scream and that will cut to an all black shot then just the date the movie is coming out will show.

Links to youtube sound effects
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVOeBUraVI4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruidM0nfUdc

Camera Shot Research

here are some example of photos we took:

We have carried out a task to improve our shot composition. This will improve how we frame shots, including and excluding elements, shot distances, selecting mise-en-scene- including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting. The picture above shows the rule of thirds,The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.

Quesstionaire to Identify the Target Audience

Questionnaire about horror movies


1. Age

2. Are you male or female

3. Do you like horror films? Yes No

4. If you don’t like horror films then what is it that you don’t like about them?


5. What kind of horror film do you like to watch?


6. What is it that you like about horror films?


7. What sort of things do you expect to see when you watch a horror film?


8. Do have a favorite actor/actress that you like to see in horror films (please state who and why)


9. What is your favourite horror film and why?


10. What is your least favourite horror film and why?


11. What time of day do you like to watch a horror film?


12. What film certificate do you usually go to watch?


13. Where do you like to watch horror films?
Cinema
Online
DVD
Other

We have carried out primary research in the form of a questionnaire to discover he target audience for horror films, and what they like/dislike about watching horror films.

We asked 6 males and 4 females, age 17-18. The results show that 90% of people like horror films. The only reason for a dislike was "because they are boring". All of the target market said the reason for liking horror movies was to keep you on the edge of their seat, they enjoy the suspense and adrenaline they get from being scared by the movies. The most popular type of scary movies were the ones that involve one main villain, for example Halloween and Friday the 13Th. Another popular type of horror movie was ones with infestations of weird characters or zombies.

90% of people said they expect to see a villain, a victim and a lot of violence in horror movies; for example blood and gore and terrifying murders.The target market's favourite movies were; Halloween, Saw, Drag me to Hell, The grudge, The strangers, Friday the 13th, Shaun of the dead, and Stephen King's IT. The reasons people had for these movies being their favourite were good plot lines,based on true stories, really make you jump, or a particular character that is terrifying.

People also had movies which they particularly disliked, their reasons for disliking them were because the movie was unrealistic, too violent and gory or the story line was too boring and the movie was slow moving.

People generally see movies that are rated 15, with some people watching 18's. They tend to watch the movies at night; it makes it increasingly scary, 50% of people said they would rather watch scary movies at home than the cinema, maybe because of the rating of the film or the cost of watching it.

Last House on the Left Marketing

Director: Dennis Iliadis

Release Date: June 12, 2009

Tagline: If someone hurt someone you love, how far would you go to get revenge?

Starring: Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Riki Lindhomem, Sara Paxton

Distributor: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

Word of Mouth: ‘The Last House on the Left’ is a fremake from a 1972 motion picture. The Director Dennis Illiadis has directed some iconic movies in the horror genre and with his name on the posters, word of mouth and expectation spread quickly for this film. Teaser trailers, radio spots, tv spots were all highly effective at generating a hype with the graphically brutal shots shown.

TV/Press:The first TV spot, January 25th 2009, for the movie was a 30 second trailer, which revealed the title of the movie, and the distributors and the director. The trailer shows several key horror moments and had to be shown after the watershed because of its contents.

Online/Mobile:There is an official website for the movie which gives information about:The DVD, cast, downloads, photos, videos, Ecards, soundtrack and official shop. www.thelasthouseontheleft.com several successful games are also streamed on the official website with social networking links.

Complementary Media: The film was met with primarily positive reviews with the main negative issue being its distance from the original film. One forum user on www.rottentomatoe.com said ‘double the kills and half the skill’ compared to the original.

Poster:2 main posters for the movie which each portrays a disturbing picture.

Trailers:There were two different trailers for the movie. The trailers include iconic scenes from this horror movie, including stabbing scenes from the movie, which leave you on the edge of your seat. Several establishing shots of the house and isolated area are shown, where the action takes place.



Merchandising:Merchandising was sparce apart from t-shirts and clothes. Due to the lack of one single authorative ‘psycho’ killer action figures and other key merchandising was not possible. Games were released unsuccessfully across all major consoles but the DVD flourished and has an extended version.

Premieres:Universal Studios organized the premiere to be screened in Los Angeles on the 3rd October with aptly themed Halloween decorations and a large all star audience attended.

Preview Screenings:The first preview screening was at the 2008 Scream Awards.