MEDIA BLOG

a2tvuwalter — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:55:34 +0000

The Audience of our Trailer

a2tvuwalter — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:59:38 +0000

Firstly i produced a questtionaire that would help understand what the audience consider to be a good horror film and basically what scares them the most. Also what makes them go to the cinema and decide to watch a certain film. Here’s the document of the questtionaire i produced:

Horror Film Trailer Questtionaire

Donnie Darko – Short analysis/opinion

a2tvuwalter — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:53:51 +0000

While not many people would classify the film “Donnie Dark” as a horror film as such i found it did have many elements/conventions that are usually identified within the “horror” genre. I really loved this film, after many friends throughout the years have recommended it to me i finally decided to watch it. The poster is pretty creepy and it features all the main characters of the film, all with very mysterious looks. In the middle there’s Jack, the creepy/weird guy who wears a scary Rabbit costume on all his scenes except one.

Analysis of finished practice clip

a2tvuwalter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:01:08 +0000

After finishing the editing of our practiced trailer i thought we achieved a pretty acceptable results considering the amount of time we had to film the scenes we used to create the trailer and the little experience we had using IMovie.

The trailer follows a common narrative. It begins with a girl walking into college, then walking to the canteen, then having a conversation with a boy, and then the conversation scene is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious hand stalking the girl, and then the guy running out of college. We didin’t use many transitions or effects as we wanted the editing to look very sharp and quick to match the music we selected, and for it to be more straight to the point.

We got the music from a website which specializes in music used for trailers. The songs exactly the length we needed it to be so we didint have to edit the track at all, we shaped our editing of scenes to match the music.

“The Audition” trailers.

a2tvuwalter — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:54:01 +0000

These two trailers are just to show how editing can make a huge difference on trailers. Wether it’s the music, the shots used, the speed of the editing. The film can be made out to be a completely different thing than it actually is.

Trailer #01 – Slower version.

Trailer #02 – Faster editing, dramatic music.

Practice Trailer Analysis

a2tvuwalter — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:13:46 +0000

To edit our practice trailer and create our sequence we used IMovie. I had never even heard of this software before. I’ve learned all the basics of how to use the program and how to apply the different effects, transitions, text, music, ETC. The hardest part was to edit out the frames we didn’t want included in our trailer and put the footage in the right order according to what we had previously planned (storyboard). The easiest was applying the effects and transitions onto the trailer, mainly thanks to how easy the program makes it, all you had to do was click on whatever effect you wanted.

We will probably use this software a whole lot when we produce our final trailer, especially to add any effects or transitions that we might want, and obviously to edit the footage and add the sound and the volume of it.

We watched some youtube tutorials for Imovie where they showed how to do certain things or cool things on the programme. We didn’t really apply much of it on our own practice trailer but we learned from them and have them for future reference now.

Editing was very important, if it weren’t for the editing our footage would probably make no sense at all and include a lot of failed scenes, etc. Also, we wouldnt have been able to add the music or text where we wanted.

Filming Practice

a2tvuwalter — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:45:11 +0000

Using the camera was easy, though i didn’t do much of the shooting myself the settings and handling of it wasn’t too complicated. We used a camera and a tripod from college. We decided on our roles by first setting up what acting role each on of us would play and based on that we decided who would do the filming on each scene. We all had a “director role” as it was all of us brainstorming different ideas on what should be done. Matt did most of the filming as he wasn’t present as an actor in many of the scenes and he also had a role of an actor as the “unknown killer/stalker guy”. Lisa played the role of “the girl walking into college” as well as doing the filming for one scene. My role was mostly as an actor, i played “the guy in the the canteen”.

The process of filming was quite fun as it was the first time we’ve done it this year, it wasn’t very challenging but it was a good way to start out and getting us used to working with cameras and tripods and story boarding a scene. We didin’t really encounter any problems when filming except the fact none of use really are actors as such so we struggled a bit with the dialogue.

The tripod got used to set the camera in place and prevent it from shaky movements. I think tripods are great as it allows you to shoot things without getting that “hand held camera” effect (eg. Blair witch Project). It’s very flexible as well because you can shrink it or make it extremely tall, so you can suit it to whatever height you want your shot to be at.

Horror Research – 100 Greatest Scary Moments

a2tvuwalter — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:02:23 +0000

During our lessons we’ve watched small segments of this programme that was originally showed on Channel 4, by watching it we’ve made notes to help us understand the horror film conventions and basically the ingredients necessary to create a good horror film. Here’s a summary of some of the notes made:

- The definition of “scary” has changed through time, people have become more aware.

- Children shouldn’t be tampered with. Plays on primal fears. EG. Night of the Hunter – the pursuit of the children.

- Horror films play on peoples fears. On each decade films focused on what was most feared during that tme. Eg. 1960s- The Space Race (Aliens, Space, etc).

- Roswell – realism. The idea that something unknown MIGHT be real. eg. Alien Autopsy.

- Physical deformities – scars, midgets, etc. Villain = Scars, Tatoos.

- Costumes and Masks, not being able to see the emotion can be scary. Eg. Darth Vader

- Dracula – first talking horror film.

- Peeping Tom (1960s) – sexual revolution. Point of view shot, first time the audience was put in the mind of a serial killer. Tried to film fear itself.

- Whistle and I;ll Come (1968) – suspense, suggestions, nothing actually happens.

- Someone handsome or “nice” looking with a dark secret. The idea that someone beautiful can be actually pretty evil Eg. Michael Jackson “Thriller” Music video.

Getting started with the cameras!

a2tvuwalter — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:15:50 +0000