Director's Commentary

Evaluation

The trailer we created follows many of the typical conventions used in authentic teaser trailers. Using a sequence of short clips with fast paced editing builds suspense, creating tension in the trailer. At the beginning of the trailer we decided to used hand held shots, to show the scenes from the killers perceptive perspective. These are techniques we see day to day in horror trailers. Typically teaser trailers are short ranging from 30 seconds to a minute; this was one the main conventions we included when we produce our own trailer. To make the trailer look more realistic we included our own production logo’s, which are commonly seen in genuine teaser trailers. We made each production logo look unique, but still used a basic red and black colour scheme to connote the horror genre. Another convention we used was to place the films name ‘Ward 13’ at the end of our trailer. We did this so the audience would know what film the trailer was advertising. We also put coming in 2010 to finish off our trailer. Although this is one of the most obvious conventions used in genuine trailers it seemed like on of the most important.

We decided to use fast paced music to create anxiety in the trailer. This type of music is typical in especially the horror genre as it usually comes to a climax allowing tension to be built visually. We added a heart beat on top of the music to show the distress of the victims. We then placed screams into the trailer, a convention used typically in the horror genre to connote anguish. Although we have used a lot of the conventions seen in genuine teaser trailer, we also challenged them. As we filmed the majority of our scenes in the day, we broke the convention of horror trailers being set mainly at night. We did this as we thought it would be more realistic for a teenage girl to be alone in the park during the day.

Having already looked at existing film magazines like 'empire' and ‘Entertainment weekly', I had a basic idea on the conventions I wanted to incorporate into my design. To begin with, the magazine name ‘Film weekly’ is written in a bold, clean cut font. The title is placed behind the cover stars head connoting the fact this is an established magazine. This is a convention used in almost all the magazine I looked at. We also placed the article names along side of the main image, typical to genuine film magazines. Like the cover images used on 'Empire' we took a mid shot of the films main character. We did this from a low angle to connote the killer’s status and power over the reader.

http://www.empireonline.com/magazine/

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/archive/0,,,00.html

However, by challenging the typical layout of tradition movie magazines we were able to produce an affective cover. We did this by placing the films name ‘Ward 13’ in a bold font at the bottom of our magazine. This challenges the magazines name showing the article inside is just as important as the magazine itself.

Our film poster follows traditional conventions in numerous ways. The main image, a long shot of the films protagonist shows not only the main character but gives a brief insight into where the film is set. This type of image is commonly used in film poster. Another convention we used was to place the films name ‘Ward 13’ boldly at the top of the poster. We felt this drew attention to the poster, leading the viewers eye from top to bottom.

Unlike genuine film posters we did not include the actors names in our poster. This was because we wanted the main focus to be on the film and its story line, rather then the actors starring in it.

Having looked at existing publicity campaigns, it was clear our own production work combined together made an effective campaign. We used continuous themes throughout the work, keeping recognizable costume and typography in each publicity piece. For example we used the same font through out all are production work when writing the films title ‘Ward 13’. This was so our work would be recognizable as a whole. We also wanted the 'Ward 13' name to become almost like a logo on each piece of work, connoting the horror genre. Our killers costumes was also important when producing a consistent advertising campaign. We used the same costume across our campaign. Whilst planning our project we came across the publicity campaign for the film District 9, this not only included a normal film poster but a 'warning Aliens' posters. This was something we wanted to included in our own work creating a escaped criminal 'wanted' poster. For this we used a mid shot of our main characters which was clearly the same as that featured throughout our film campaign creating a obvious link to the rest of our publicity work.

Using the concept of synergy we produced a four piece publicity campaign to advertise our film 'Ward 13'. Each of these uses a different form of media to reach the public, constantly reminding them of the product or film in our case.

As our target audience is teenagers, we had to make sure are work would appeal to people of a younger age group. We did this in a number of different way, the most obvious being the use an entirely teenage cast. This is clear throughout our production work as the people in the trailer, poster and magazine are clearly teenagers. Also because are story is based on 19 year old David Slash; it is easier for our audience to relate to the character as it is reprehensive of their teenage social group. Conventionally horror movies are targeted at young adults aged 18-25. As this is the case, we had to find a way of targeting our film at a slightly younger audience to meet the brief we were given. We did this by making the storyline more relatable to people of a younger age group. We also focused our magazine at specifically teenagers, making the articles featured on the cover appeal to people aged 15-19.

Once we had finish our publicity campaign, we asked a group of teenagers what they thought of our work. When we had gotten feedback we decided to make some changes to improve our final product. One improvement we made was the change in our trailers soundtrack. The teenagers we asked suggested we made the music more intense, we did this adding a heartbeat to the final soundtrack. They also suggested that we made the colouring in the magazine a lot brighter, so the blood on the shirt would stand out.

Although we made a few changes, most of the feedback we receive was extremely positive. The feedback showed that the audience really like the props we used, saying that they made the entire project a lot more theatrical. From the feedback we received it was clear we had achieved a project that appeal to the audience we were targeting and that the final product was finished to a good standard. We also set up a facebook and youtube account. Both of these included most of our production work I.e. the poster, magazine and teaser trailer. We created these as we wanted to see the reaction the film got from our peers. Both web pages got substantial feedback, with people commenting on what they thought of all our work. The feedback we got from this was again very positive. Comments included;

• ‘Great trailer, cant wait for the film’

• ‘Nice trailer, the villain looks genuinely scary with that mask on!"

We also asked the audience if our film campaign reminded them of any pre existing publicity campaigns, from this we established that a few of our group thought the campaign was similar to the campaign used to promote films District 9 and the Blair witch project, as they also created additional warning posters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPwqle-7A4I

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=ward+13&init=quick#/group.php?gid=168380608966&ref=search&sid=537472053.27074203..1



Here is a short video we produced for our audience feedback. We asked a number of people in our target age group what they thought of our work and different ways to improve it.

These are the questions we asked;
1. Does the film appeal to you? why?

2. Does the film appeal to your age range?

3. What do you think of the characters and conventions used?

4. What do you think of the camera editing?

5. If any changes were to be made, what should they be?




From this we received mostly good feedback, with all most all the people we asked saying they liked the element of surprise in the trailer. We also learnt that the use of candles to connote the horror genre work extremely well, as this was something a lot of people commented on. All in all I feel the campaign has works well together as a whole and appeals specifically to our target audience. As we mainly recieved positive feedback from our targeted age group I think we have managed to create a project fitting with the teen horror genre.

Although most of the feedback we receive was positive we were given some things to work on. A few people said they didn't like the mysterious feel of the trailer and would of preferred if they were given more information on the film within the trailer itself. They also questioned the use of handheld shots at the beginning of the trailer. If we had more time we probably would have used a tripod as it would have made the shots look more professional.

Throughout the different staged of the project we used a range of different media technologies. These include;

• Cameras video/still
• Photoshop
• I-movie
• Word
• Excel
• Facebook
• Youtube
• Safari
• QuickTime

The main use of media technology is the use of cameras. We used both video and still cameras whilst producing our publicity campaign. Then transferred the footage we had filmed into our second media technology; I-movie. In my opinion this was the hardest technology we had to use as none of the group had that much experience with the program. Whilst we were using I-movie to edit, we were also using another Mac program to produce the trailers music; Garage band. When all the elements to the trailer were completed we had to export it to QuickTime, this was so we could upload it to our blogs. Using new media social networking sites like facebook and Myspace we were able to create fan webpage’s to help advertise the film. We specifically used facebook as this is a social networking site commonly used with are target audience of 15-19.

Again we used a camera to produce the still images for our magazine and poster. Once we had taken these images we uploaded them onto the computer using a firewire, where we started editing using Photoshop. We downloaded a font from internet site www.dafont.com. When we finished all our production work we started work on are electronic evaluation. We did this using www.blogger.com, a popular blogging website on the internet. We also used a number of convergent technologies when creating our publicity campaign including multi function cameras and internet blogging.

Final Trailer