Film Magazine Cover – Horror

-What research did you do on film magazines?

I researched on many different genre of film magazines to see what the typical conventions are and what the audience prefer to read and see on weekly read magazines. Out of all the magazines I have chosen six magazine to show on my blog. I have realized that only four of these magazines show a bar code and the other two don’t. All the magazines show the title at the above of the page, therefore i would most likely be doing the same for my magazine to be more competitive in the media market. All magazines show some sort of subheading’s and images that are displayed in a particular way to match there personality and characters in the film they are playing. For example in the first image there is a very close up shot of the characters face looking straight into the viewers eyes which shows that he he is a brave and strong character in the film he is in which is Star Trek.

How have you used this research and subsequent findings to inform your magazine cover?

I have decided to use some of these magazine ideas for when producing my magazine for example a Bar code will be added in my magazine, I will use similar fonts that are easy to read as my film magazine would reach to a more wide audience and using similar colors compared to my title just to add presentation skills. Most magazines above promote future events and films which I think is a very good marketing tactic to increase sales for future films to be released therefore I will add and consider some of these ideas for my magazine.

-How did you select the mise en scene for the film magazine cover?

I wanted all my productions, The poster and the magazine to have some similarity to show that they are promoting the same film. I have done this by adding similar yet different background pictures. The background of my magazine is woods. The reason for this is because the main dilemma in the film occurs in the woods therefore by doing this would help set the scene for what the film involves and would be about. I believe the mise en scene is also perfect and matches how the characters are displayed. Even though the mise en scene is the woods, the characters block a lot of the view of the background which also shows that the film involves more than one main character which could be persuasive for some audience.

-How have you ensured that this magazine cover works well with your poster and your trailer to produce an effective part of a marketing campaign for the release of an original film?

The pictures and mise en scene relates to my film, I have made my film the main subject on my magazine which would have an effective impact on the media and marketing campaigns as customers/viewers would be aware of this film. I believe that this magazine can easily persuade people to watch the actual film itself. Furthermore the poster works wells with the magazine and is obvious that they are relating to the same film as well as the trailer. This creates the biggest impact towards the market as it shows the film to be quite powerful in the film market as a lot of media products have been produced to promote it. This would make the film itself not look to cheap which would most likely guarantee an increase in customer awareness.

The promotion on the film is strong which should help boost attention for when the film has been released in cinemas.

Student Feedback –

• I like the way the colors are used, helps me to find the heading and subheadings quicker.
• The bar code looks quite professional
• The picture and the background image of a forest is a perfect match with the actual film
• The layout is simple yet effective which is good as it does not look too much
• The images used are powerful and relates to the characters personality, I can tell the chracter facing the camera is the most important

.I researched on many existing magazines before making my actual trailer to help find typical conventions that I can use for my magazine.

Editing On My Film Magazine

The two images above shows the shape behind the ‘Free cinema deals inside’ and how i decided to reduce the opacity to make the shpae less visible and still slightly show the image behind the circle. This looks more professional now as it does not over power the rest of the magazine as much.

The two images above are displayed to show how i have reduced the color of the two characters behind the main character. The reason for this was because the images were taken at different places therefore i decided to reduce the color to make it look as if they are all in the same place while the picture is being taken. This is shown in the second image on the right. By doing this it adds effect to the main characters emotion at that specific time which is meaningless. I decided to make my character to pose in this way because i want the audience to not know her emotions and be confused with the un-ordinary pose.

Horror Poster

The images I decided to use were ones that would relate best with my trailer as the posters main objective is to promote my movie. Due to this I had a option of showing a girl face (aimed to be Katie) hiding her face to show she is being attacked so the part of the film where she is murdered. However I felt this may give away too much of the film or some viewers may find it offensive. Therefore I decided to not use this and use my other option which was to show a girls back standing looking into the abandoned forest/woods. This was to connote isolation and also to express the mise en scene and how no one is around her.

I researched before I start to create my poster. The reason for this was to get an idea of a typical convention of a poster. This would help me get ideas of how to design my layout as well see what sells and receives the most attention in the movie market. I decided to look at existing posters such as shown below.

-How did I use this research to inform your own poster?

I used this research quite frequently for when creating my own poster. I have noticed some conventions such as colors used. All colors used are similar and relate to the genre and the actual film itself for example the Saw poster uses mainly ‘red’ to connote blood. I will use this information by using colors that i think would relate to my story and genre. All the posters are not very detailed and can be said to be quite simple. This has a big effect as the poster is not overpowering and allows the customers/viewers to concentrate on what the creators of the posters want them too i.e. the pictures and disturbing images.

All posters have limited information but all have one similarity which is that they all encode different meaning depending on the audience. An example would be the Saw poster, it can be said to be polysemic as it has more than one meaning as the person could be captured, whether its a victim or something else. This is good as it makes the poster more persuasive and effective in terms of selling the film.

The image above was my own taken image of my first idea. This would have been an effective poster yet didn’t persuade the audience enough for me to keep it so I decided to change it.

The Screen shot above shows how far I am with my poster. As you can see I have used a random image to help me when designing my actual poster. I have included the date and the title .

Feedback from Students:

• The image does not go with the poster itself
• The colors go well together and i really like the fonts used
• The fonts are good
• The date chosen to release the film is a perfect time cause it relates to the atmosphere pf red ad orange leaves
• The poster does not persuade me enough to go and watch it
• the fact I see her back annoys me as a viewer

The feedback wasn’t as positive as I wanted. a lot of negatives points have been said therefore I will not be using the above layout and will try to impress the viewers more as i believe now it would not make huge profits in the open market.

The image above is my work so far. No background has been added yet. Without any feedback i have decided to add a wood/forest background as it would relate to the tree and the image of them being isolated. The image I took was taken at Blackpark.

The image shown with the two girls behind the tree is my second idea of a poster. The reason why one is covering her mouth and one covering her eyes is because one saw it all but one saw nothing but heard it all. I did this because it creates interest for the viewers and can be said to ‘tease’ and persuade the viewers to want to watch the poster. I am now going to add the text and title to the poster.

This image shows the first style I had for my title for my poster. The title does not really go with poster itself as it stands out too much and has no similarity or scary effect to defend the posters genre therefore I decided to start all over and find a different font and style of layout for my poster.

I have now added text and going to see what people think of my poster so far.

Student Feedback :

I love the title and how its displayed. It looks like it has been scratched into the tree with a penknife but it looks a bit obvious that its bin placed on top but still looks good!

the images displayed are good, it looks like a poster that would attract me but needs more text

The background looks kinda scary as it makes them look they are isolated somewhere. I really like this poster.

The colors are not very thriller

The feedback I received is brilliant. I liked what the first student said and will take this into consideration and try to make it looked carved in. I am now going to add more text and add conventions to make it look like a poster.

Above I have tried a black and white effect with and without the title. I have noticed positive feedback that it has a good effect on on the poster however makes it too bland and dull. Therefore as a result i have decided to only make certain parts of the poster black and white to give a more strong effect.

I have added more text and a date to meet with the conventions of a postet. In this picture i have used blacnk and white effects with colour images. In order for me too see my performance of whether the poster is looking better.

Student feedback:

• The colors are good
• The black and white around one girl is giving away the story a bit as i can tell that she must be the evil or evil one, or in other words not the victim.
• The text at the bottom looks really professional

The second bullet has made me decide to add a bit more black and white effect to hide the actual victim and not give away too much of the film before it has been released into the cinemas.

1                                                                                            2                                                                                                     3

Above I have decided to make both of them black and white aswell as the background and tree. I kept the title red because I want audience to see the title first and also because red connotes danger which is involved in my film.The second images shows that  I used the same font and style of my date because I believe it has a gory and bloody look to it which relates well with my new poster. I have noticed that the black and white effect makes my poster look a bit old and not modern. I am going to change this by darkening the whole poster mainly around the tree to add a thriller effect. I have shown this in the 3rd image.

I also decided to use a effect provided by Photoshop that allows me too darken the top and bottom of the poster also shown in image 3. This hides the poster a bit which makes it more mysterious and dark creating a look as the the viewers are peeping through a whole to see whats going on. This has the effect to make the viewer believe they are in the scene.

The image displayed above is my final poster design after adjusting brightness and colors and text. I have chosen to get feedback from not just students but also teachers to see what they think of the production.

Student and Teacher feedback:

• I like how the black and white effect and the color effect has been used. The poster is not too detailed yet has all the information me as a viewer needs.
• I like the colors and how they been used
• the images do create confusion for me but I like that because its making me want to actually see the trailer for this film
• all the text is displayed perfectly
• the layout is good and this poster does look like a professional poster

I did further researched and realized my poster did not have any quote or saying that relates to the film. This is a typical convention in an poster so I decided to add this to attract the audience. I have shown this in the image above and decided to add it at the top of the poster so it does not interfere with the images central on the page.

-How well does your poster convey meaning to the audience?

My poster does get the audiences attention, i designed my poster so it does not give away too much of the film yet still attracts the audienec enough to want to watch the film. I have used my characters in a way to relate to the storyline of my film as Katie (on the left) dies yet doesnt see her killer through shock and Emma (on the right) kills Katie yet does not confess yet we viewers are fooled to make her look innocence. This shows that the poster is not a random production but yet has a more deeper meaning to why images and text have been displayed in such ways.

I decided to show the title going down on the tree simply because the murder took place in the woods. this then relates to the storyline again.

-What editing techniques did you use in Photoshop to create the right mood for your poster?

The editing techniques I used for my poster were:

• Brightness/Darkness adjustment which was used on the whole poster
• Cropping of the images to only have the character and not the scene around them showing
• Black and White effects
• Strokes and Overlays on fonts changing to different colors

Sound/audio manipulation/addition

Sound is a key component to your trailer having a good effect on the audience.

-How did you decide which music to use for it?

Choosing music was not as easy as it sounds. I had to research on other existing trailers to find similar conventions that are used commonly to help relate to my trailer. I decided to use some soundtracks from a popular horror computer game called ‘Project Zero 3’. I used these sounds because they are catchy, not too loud and would take over the voices in the trailer yet help set a dull and scary scene.

I managed to find a a website shown above that allow me to download horror music freely. I decided to gather some music off this site by downloading it into a Itunes format to use with IMovie. This website was very helpful as the quality was also good so went werll with the trailer produced.

I also asked for feedback of students to see which sound would best suit and fit in with my trailer as shown below is an example of one of the soundtracks i was planning to use. This particular one was the ‘Saw Soundtrack’. However was told that it is too quick and dramatic for my trailer. I took this into consideration and tried to find something which is less dramatic.

 

The images above are showing the parts where i decided to change music and soundtracks to relate to the mood. For example in the second image the teacher is getting sympathetic towards the other in the conversation. To back this up i decided to change the tone of the soundtrack to something more calm which is a piano instrumental.

There were some issues that occured with sound for example I did not know how to convert them into mp3 so they would be capable to use in IMovie.  Other issues also occured for example the quality of some soundtracks should be good to use for a trailer. These were all resolved after doing alot of reseach to find the best quality and also using a sound downloading system converting all the soundtracks I prefered to mp3. There was also other problems such as trying to get the sound to match the action being shown in the trailer without affecting the rest of the trailer, to allow this not to happen I had to crop some soundtracks and music.

I had alot of inspiration with choosing sound such as watching trailer like ‘Devil’, ‘Paranormal Activity’ ‘Swan’ and ‘Saw’ etc. I gathered ideas and techniques producers of trailers have used to catch the viewers attention for example a sudden change of scene and to defend this adding a loud sound to get the attention of the audience. I also had inspriation through computer games and the soundtracks used in them to help create my trailer which i have mentioned in other parts of my blog. I now understand the importance of sound and how it has a huge impact on trailers. When I added sound the trailer felt more tense and exciting which clearly shows choosing the right sound for my trailer could choose whether it would be a success or a failure when released into the market.

Editing Your Trailer

-What do you think of imovie?

I have always been into software like IMovie so for me it was quite easy to get used to. I found the program quite useful and easy to navigate, there was no complex to it. IMovie as a program I think is brilliant, it has all the features expected from a movie maker software. It allows users to edit, change, improve clips/scenes and add sound without hassle and to the users own satisfaction.

-What issues were raised during the editing process?

During editing, I occurred with much problems for example the speed of the clips. There was some part of the trailer that clips were fast which didn’t look so professional. This created problems with trying to add sound to it and to know whats going on in the trailer. I overcame this situation by adding text in between the clips introducing the trailer which allowed the scenes to run more smoothly. Furthermore by doing this the trailer did not look have a pace effect no more and looked much much professional.

-How did you decide which shots to include and which ones to exclude?

I decided which shots to includes and what to excludes through qualitative feedback like opinions and feedback. On top of this I decided which ones to add and exclude through what the scenes involved and whether they relate and match all the other scenes of the trailer. There were some scene which our group were deciding to use and added them in our trailer, after receiving feedback alot of opinions was that the scene itself was too long and delayed the trailer too much. This made me decide to exclude this scene as our trailer as it stops the pace of the trailer which didnt attract alot of the student who gave feedback.

-How much information will you give away in order to get the audience interested but not to give too much away and ruing it?

We will give out a limited amount of information in our trailer. Our trailer has literally no storyline yet an high amount of interest to what is actually going on. This is perfect for us as the storyline itself has not been ruined and the film still remains anonymous regardless of a trailer being produced about it.

In our trailer we give out a certain amount of information about the story the the film as a whole for example areas of the trailer which confuse the audience.  By doing this keeps the viewers interested yet the story and the film itself a secret. We also in the trailer show parts of one of our character getting hitting and she covers her face. Indicates that there is death in this trailer yet the trailer gives out no information to why she is getting hitting or where. This also would keep the audience interested as audience like to see death in there horror films and the idea of victims which they can relate to or sympathize for.

-How did you create a sense of fear?

In our trailer, we relied slot on sound and sound effects to create fear. The trailer scenes itself does not have much scary scenes as we leave it to out audiences imagination. The scenes are quite mysterious so we relied on flashing images and quick sudden changes of scenes to scare our audience a bit. The characters itself did not dress to scare the audience as they dressed quite normal. However in some scenes we did decide to edit the scene to make it look more scary. -what transitions/technology techniques did you use to create certain effects etc?

Transitions:

Black and white effects were used at the start of my trailer as shown below. The reason for this was too make the mise en scene itself look more scary as well show that the path you see is dull and not a happy route to take. This gives viewers the idea of the person walking up to them in the scene is not a victim. I believe this is a good way to start the trailer as it gets the audience in the mood of the genre of the film. As shown by editing this has reduced visibility to the person walking up which create some fear towards the viewer as the scene itself look twisted.

Fade In + Fade Out was also used as shown below. The main idea for this was to connect the scenes together and create a sense of flow. The picture below is an example as i used ‘Fade Out’ which looked well with the scene as she was upset and the scene fades black.

Texts were a good way to introduce the film and its producers as shown below. During the trailer was playing I added text to tell viewers who produced the film and the title of the film itself. This adds a professional look to the trailer.

Flash edits can be used with IMovie. This was a perfect way to end the trailer as it leaves the audience wanting more and can be said in a cliffhanger as the next scene to what she turns around and sees is annonymous.

Echo was used in my trailer which editing there voice to sound more ghostly and better.  At thisa point the girl is a victim as she is being pressured to answer questions. This was done through changing the sound a little which impacted the scene well.

I have shown this screenshot belowe because it is scenes that were either too long or didnt fit in well with thtrailer after student feedback was given. I believe this is an imporatnt screenshot to show as it shows that audience research was done to find what bests suits my trialer through my eyes aswell as the audience’s eyes.

Filming Your Trailer

Try to take some pictures of the scenes and also of your group ‘working’ so that we can see who is doing what. It should be a candid shot rather than a group pose!

-What problems did you encounter?

We encounted problems with the brightness and lighting effects. For example in some clips the sunlight was too bright causing visibility in some scenes to be low. Due to this we had to record some scenes and parts of the trailer at certain areas and times of the day which created problems with when and where to meet.

We also had problems with camera angles and shots sometimes the mise en scene was not good enough or didn’t relate to the scene good enough. Therefore we had to change our location  a lot to ind the best and most suitable place.

Costumes and props was also a situation with out trailer as it was time consuming as we had to spend a lot of time with how the characters should look.

-What worked well and what didn’t?

The Mise En Scene after a lot of decisions was quite good and related well with the trailer as the trees and narrow roads expressed a way of isolation for the victim character. Another thing that worked well was the shots and angles that we chose to use. we decided to use as much camera angles and shots as possible to make the trailer as professional and exciting as possible. By us using a lot of shots and different angles helped to show the trailer to the best of its abilities.

-Will you need to do some more filming? If so why and where/when?

We will need to do some more filming because of clips that do not match together enough to make it look professional. For example the time of the day changing quick so little scenes that we included to match the time of the days. We will need to do some more filming when the two friends Katie and Emma are together.

Camera angles used

Very Close Up Shot is used as shown below. This camera angloe was perfect for the scene as it adds more tense to it as the girl is shown in details hiding cause of someone/something. The character Katie had a prop on that always differentiated her from Emma which wa sher hat. The reason why she in consistently dressed like this is because is shown she likes to hide her self therefore may not be very secure about herself. This gives viewers an insight of what type of girl she is.

Low Angle Shot is used as shown when the spade hits towards the camera. The reason why this was done was simply as it show power of the spade hitting the camera and makes the audiencelok vunerable as if they are on the ground and defenceless. This is a good shot to help understand Katies pain. I also decided to darken the scene a bit to make it look later on in the day.

 

Medium Shot was used below for when Emma becomes a tiny bit phycho. We decided to do this so viewers can see her body language acting different to show something is not right.

High Angle Shot was also used looking down on the spade, the reason why was because we wanted the audience to feel like they are controlling the spade and making them look like the murderer. This is a huge effect on making the audience feel bad yet intrested.

Over The Shoulder Shot is a good shot to use to show two people having a conversation aswell as making those who are watching the trailer the third person in the conversation. Another reason for this clip was so the Teachers reactions can be shown as she is looking at Emma.

 

The image below is a Pan Movement Shot which first started off with the camera just seeing the tree and moves out to look at the car. This pan movemewnt shot was not done for long. By using this shot helps viewers understand that the caharcters are being watched and followed.

The image below is an Long Shot. This was used to decrese visibility of the man sitting on the bench and show that the scene has no violence of negativity in it as the mise en scene is not dull. How ever i liked this scene as the charcter is wearing all black and the trees are pretty much dead. I liked this as it relates to the charcter in the film.