Why I Chose To Have A 15 Rated Film

Here are some of the things you'd find in a 12A rated film:

• Moderate physical and psychological threat may be permitted, as long as disturbing sequences are not ongoing
• Weapons should not be flaunted
• Moderate language is allowed
• Mature themes are accepted, but it needs to be suitable for the viewing of the younger audience 
• Not a lot of emphasis on blood, injuries and gore 

Here are some of the things you'd find in a 15 rated film:

• Sexual nudity
• Drug taking 
• Strong verbal references to sex
• Strong violence
• Frequent strong language
• Brief scenes of sexual violence 

Here are some of the things you'd find in a 18 rated film: 

• Strong horror
• Strong blood and gore 
• Discriminatory language and behaviour
• Frequent or very strong language
• Very strong violence
• Strong portrayals of sexual activity

I have decided to give my film a 15 certificate because the scenes featured in my trailer conform more to what is typically found in this age bracket. My trailer would not meet the requirements of a 12A. Weapons will be shown in my trailer and there is a lot of emphasis on blood and injuries. Blood is key for a horror movie so I feel that it is important to show it a lot. In my opinion the emphasis on blood establishes the horror genre, the audience know there's danger. My trailer would not meet the requirements of the 18 certificate either as there is not a lot of strong violence, there's not a lot of strong blood and gore, strong horror is not that evident. From looking at my trailer so far, I would be able to tell that it was meant for the horror genre but it isn't that scary to me. As there is little dialogue used in my horror trailer, there is no room for discriminatory language and behaviour. In my trailer there is not very strong violence that occurs in my trailer so this wouldn't meet the 18 certificate requirement. After careful consideration I have decided to go with the 15 certificate as it is too explicit for the 12A but too soft for the 18 rated film. Although there is no strong violence or strong language used in my horror trailer, there is emphasis on blood, and some violence which would be suitable for my target audience. My target audience fits between 15-20 year olds so 12A automatically is eliminated as I've focused more on creating it for the age group of my target audience. My target audience could fit either 15 or 18 but there isn't enough violence or enough blood for it to be substantial enough to be an 18.

Photoshop Corrections On Image For The Poster

These are the corrections that I made to the image that I used on the film poster. I made the corrections on Photoshop and thought they'd help make the image look better. The image on the left is before and the image on the right is after. At the top, the image on the left shows all the changes that have been made to the picture. I got rid of a scar on her arm, darkened the blood on her forehead, darkened the blood on her nose and darkened the blood on her t-shirt. I personally felt as though the picture didn't need that much editing that's why I made the decision to make really small changes. The image on the bottom shows the before and after picture of me making a downward cross from the shadow on her face. The left image is the before and the right image is after. In the after image it may be hard to tell where I have put the line across the shadow to create the downward cross but I made the decision to not make it that obvious as the colours didn't blend well with her skin and it would look too blatant to an audience that a line has been cut out and inserted on her face. I darkened up the majority of the blood because I want the blood to be noticed. I didn't want the blood to appear fake so I made sure by it looking dark, it looked more real.

Making Some Changes To Text On Poster

Whilst I put the release date on the movie poster, one of my media teachers thought it would look nice to have a faded white box behind it. I took before and after pictures to see which looked better and I thought it looked a lot better without the transparent box. I consulted my group when coming up with the decision on whether to keep it or not and we all agreed that it was best if the box was not included. The white box did give a ghostly effect to it but I don't think it was needed for the film poster, it also made the date less visible to audience.

With the evil never dies tagline, I got audience feedback from my teacher and she thought it would look best with a full stop. My group and I came up with the decision to leave it without a full stop. We took a look at some other horror movie posters and saw that a tagline rarely ever had a full stop. It wasn't conventional to have the full stop there so we decided it would look better to not include it. I think it looks better without the full stop and draws more attention to the actual tagline.

Changing The Effects For Titles On Poster

These print screens illustrate some of the changes I made to the title of the poster and some other texts on the poster.The first image demonstrates how I made the release date stand out more on the page. The effect I used to make it stand out more to an audience was drop shadow. The drop shadow helped it become darker and bolder. I experimented with all of the different effects but drop shadow is the only one that made a significant difference to the font.

Update 28/1/15: I have decide to add bevel and emboss effect on the release date as it makes it stand out even more than before. Just like the title it gave off a 3D look and I asked for audience feedback from my peers and it was agreed that the release date looked better with the bevel and emboss effect.

The images above show all the effects that I used on the film title. To make the title be the most prominent thing on the page, I played around with a lot of effects. The effects I decided to use in the end were drop shadow and bevel and emboss. These really helped make the title pop. It almost became 3D like to me when I added the effects, it's conventional for movie posters that the film title is the biggest on the page and I ensured it was bigger than the credits, taglines and the release date to conform to the conventions of a film poster. 

Playing Around With Different Positions Of The Title

Whilst I was making the poster, I found it challenging thinking of where to put all of the texts as there was limited space. I looked at typical horror film posters and it was conventional for the title of the film to be placed at the bottom. I looked at posters for Drag Me To Hell, The Possession, The Return, The Exorcist, Silent Hill, Hide And Seek and a few other posters and the title of the movie always appeared at the bottom of the film poster. However the film poster that I created will subvert from how a horror film poster typically looks and I will have the title at the top of the poster. The reason I put the title at the top of the poster was because at the bottom of the page most of the focus was on the image and I felt that it would become lost with the background being a blooded t-shirt. As the pictures illustrate, I played around with the look of the title at the bottom of the poster and I don't think it looked as good as if the title was at the top. I looked for the positions of slogans on horror film posters and I found that it varied depending on which film poster it was. There was no specific layout for where the slogan went but for my horror poster, the slogan looked better at the top as there was a big black empty space so it looked better filling it up, Also I liked the look of having the slogan underneath the title, it was effective having the red colour and then white underneath, it showed a contrast. The pictures also illustrate how the slogan 'evil never dies' was originally in the colour red but I felt there was too much red on the poster and there needed to be a change. The tagline didn't stand out at all and got overshadowed by the title. Although it's a good thing having the title be more of a focus than the tagline, I still wanted the tagline to be evident on the poster. The decision to change the colour came after I experimented with all of the different positions of text and also I looked at the conventional colours for horror films and black, red and white were the most dominant ones so I wanted to involve all colours on the poster. The audience feedback helped me a lot in the poster making process as I was able to make adjustments to improve how it looked overall.

Choosing Fonts For The Poster

The website 'Dafont' was used to find the font to use on my film poster. Birth Of A Hero was chosen and is the predominant text on the film poster. Of all the fonts, my group and I found that this font was the best font to use on both ancillary texts. I like how there appears to be splatters in the text. Having the odd splatters in the texts became a challenge when wanting to fill them with different colours but with precision and patience, it was done. In Photoshop, my group and I came up with the decision to change the colour of the text for all of them. I wanted February 14th to be in the colour red as well as the title of the film and the website. The tagline 'evil never dies' got changed to white in the Photoshop process. The font looked a lot better in red and white rather than black, It would've been complicated to have the font in black as it would've clashed with the background but having white and red font allowed there to be a colour scheme on the movie poster. Black, white and red are colour schemes used mainly for the horror genre. The red used for the release date, title and website help make the text stand out, Colour is what would draw readers attention directly towards it. Using the colour red with the effect of splatter imprints that is given off by the font is effective in creating the illusion of blood splatter without having to create one from scratch. To fill in the font I used the paint bucket tool and took the colour red then filled it in gradually. I then took the white colour and used the same paint bucket tool to make the text change to white.

Choosing The Film Poster Image

The original image that I was going to put on the film poster was going to be the image on the left. We took over 30 pictures so that there would be a variety to choose from and this one stood out to me, The pictures we took were some of her holding the chain and some without but we decided as a group that for the film poster it would be best to have the chain incorporated in it. The picture was in focus and had her holding the chain which is one of the main driving forces in my narrative. It was a medium shot which is the type of shot that most film posters use to show the face and a bit of the costume. I thought the image chosen showed her face makeup well and also the costume which was covered in blood. I wanted the blood to be involved as it's an iconography of horror and it establishes the horror genre. To an audience, the first thing they will notice is the blood on her face and top and this will automatically make them assume something bad has happened. Dawn looks quite scary in the first image as well, she looks hypnotized by the necklace and the shadow on her face gave her an even darker appearance. After I got some feedback from my media teacher and some peers, I decided that this image was good but it wasn't the best of all the ones that I had taken. I looked through them again and discovered the image on the right.

The image on the right was striking as it looked to an audience as if she was looking at the camera but the necklace as well. It was challenging working with a black background especially when it came to cutting her image out because it looked apparent that the image was cut out. Her hair outline stuck out with the black background so I made the decision to keep the image in the same exact spot and create the poster around it. Instead of cutting out the image I put all the text on top of the image. We used a black sheet for the background and I ironed it to make sure it wasn't that creased. I learnt from audience feedback that this image was more striking to them than the first one. The audience feedback also helped in making me decide whether to cut out the image. I cut out the image and showed an audience but they told me that they were able to tell that the image had been cut out and it looked weird on the background. The feedback helped me develop my poster and make it come out better than it would've if I hadn't of made certain changes. On the image that I ended up using, I used the shadow over her left eye to my advantage. I manipulated the shadow by lassoing out a section of the shadow and rotated it to make a downward cross. The downward cross has been used in other horror films such as The Conjuring and The Omen. The cross is turned upside down to become a symbol of the devil. The devil is believed to be a supernatural entity that is the personification of evil. The villain in the poster represents evil and through the downward cross on her face it would be illustrating this. I made the downward cross quite subtle, I didn't want to make it stand out too much as I didn't want that to be the sole focus of the poster. Making the downward cross was challenging in itself as I had to change the brightness and exposure levels up and down to create the right balance. If it the shadow was too dark it didn't blend in well with her skin. The mise-en scene on the poster is apparent, the chain is the thing that stands out. In the second image she's holding out her arm to essentially promote the necklace. Also her eye makeup in the image on the right was lighter than the one on the left which made it easier to darken and change.

Finding Fonts For The Poster In Photoshop

The first image displays the Tunga font. The second image displays the Trebuchet Ms font and the last image displays the Sprocket font. All these different fonts, I tried and tested to be put on the film poster but none of them looked like real credits. I first started off with the font from the first image as it was my favourite. It was very simple and clear for the audience to read but I found that with all of the texts, the lines were too long and not broken up enough. I couldn't find any credits that had such a long sentence so I decided to scrap all these fonts and find a font on the website 'da font'. 

Adjusting The Masthead On The Magazine

Going into the select option in Photoshop, inverse + delete was then clicked to get rid of all the unwanted parts of the page. Once that was done, the magic wand tool was used. Clicking on the letter 'E' and select similar to highlight all the other letters and then inverse + delete again. Through the different print screens its showing the process of how the masthead can be moved more freely. In the first couple of screen shots, the masthead is in front of the main image and there are black bits in between that don't need to be there. The last image shows the black filling in between the letters being gone. The masthead goes over the main image well and actually blends in.

Editing The Image For The Poster

On the first image, I edited the picture so that the makeup could be darkened. As you can see in the first image, the under eye makeup on the picture on the right is severely darker than the one on the left. Also the cut on the forehead had been darkened just to emphasis the blood. I was hoping it would stand out to an audience. Her lip was also darkened but I made this more subtle than the other blood on her face. The second image shows the adjustments that I have made to the top. I applied the auto levels and auto contrast, I then changed the exposure and brightness for the blood on her top to make it darker. For the last image, I removed a scar from her arm and a spot from her forehead just to make the picture a little bit more 'perfect'.

Importing The Masthead For The Magazine

In order to get the masthead, 'Empire logo' had to be typed into Google so that the best one could be chosen for the magazine cover. One was chosen that looked like the official Empire logo and in order to get the biggest pixel so that the font wouldn't come out blurry, I clicked on 'click on view image'. I wouldn't want the masthead looking blurry on the magazine front cover else it wouldn't look realistic to a reader seeing it and it would ruin the look of the magazine cover. Empire is a well known established magazine so my group and I wanted it to seem as though we had an issue out with this magazine. The masthead was imported into Photoshop and it came out massive because of it's size. In order to reduce the size, Ctrl+T was used to transform the image so that it could fit into the page; the second and third print screen are representative of this happening. It was shrunken just enough so that it would be easy to get rid of all the other text on the page we imported. To get just the Empire logo, the rectangular marque tool was used to cut around the part of the text. The barcode and other texts weren't needed so the rectangular marque tool just made sure that the Empire logo was the only thing that was being cut out. The image chosen in Google was chosen because the logo was on a black background. The black background made it easier as all we had to do was cut out the masthead and it would be there on the magazine cover and little had to be done to it as it matched the background for my magazine cover already. If it was on a white background more problems would arise as we would then have to fit in the gaps with black colour or cut out the letters individually but there would be little time to do this.

 

Editing The Image For The Magazine

This is the editing of the chosen image for the magazine cover. The lasso tool was used to cut the image and to cut out the black sheet that the picture was taken on. Using the lasso tool left the outline of her head looking rugged but this was easy to fix by using the blur tool. The blur tool helped to soften the edges so that it would blend better with the black background. When using the blur tool, a steady hand had to be used so that it was accurate and efficient. The size of the blur had to be quite small because if it was too big, it would end up blurring her face out. The last image is showing the results of the blurring tool, there's definitely a big difference from the first image to the last on the rugged lines around her hair. The last image just emphasises how well the blurring tool worked, any bits that still looked a bit wonky could easily be hidden with text around the image.

Choosing The Right Image For The Magazine Cover

These are the three images that were narrowed down to be the image that went on the magazine cover. Out of all the images, I personally liked the top and bottom ones. The bottom one was really striking to me. I took all the images and when I took the images, I made sure there were a variety of shots and I felt like having a low angle shot to make it look as if the villain was looking down to the readers. She looks menacing and the costume and make-up were strongly highlighted in this picture. There were several challenges with this image as when I took the image, I got a bit of the studio wall in the back which was white. On Photoshop, I used the bucket tool to fill the back in black but it was clear that the black fill was different from the black she was standing against. I tried to stretch the masthead across the top to disguise the white background but it was noticeable as well, nothing seemed to work. Another challenge that I faced was that the masthead would cover the majority of her face as conventionally, a masthead appears at the top of a magazine cover and her face is pretty much at the top. I even tried to cut out the image using the lasso tool so that I could change the positioning of her on another background but the white background kept getting caught every time I went to lasso her out. From all the challenges and complications that I faced, I thought it would be best to reject this image as it would be too time consuming to edit the image and make the actual magazine cover especially as there was such a short deadline. I consulted my group and told them all the struggles that I faced with this image and we all agreed that it would be best to explore some other options with the main image.

The image in the middle was chosen because it was an extreme close up shot and darkness was being represented. The main thing that would be shown would be her makeup and this is important for the readers to see as it shows her blooded. Although this is a good image, it wasn't a good image for the magazine cover. The extreme close up shot would mean there would be no space to write any texts on it. Magazine covers normally have features on them and this would be quite impossible to do with such a shot. Again I tried to lasso the image out but it didn't work because of how close up the shot is. I tried seeing how it would look if the masthead went over her forehead and it didn't look right at all. This shot had to be rejected as there wasn't much we could do to transform it into a magazine cover. The shot type was completely wrong for the ancillary text we were producing. This shot perhaps would work a bit better on the magazine cover as magazine covers tend to have less text on it.

The top image is the image that my group and I decided to go with. My media teacher thought that the image was really focused and I agreed. It's a medium close up shot which is a shot type that is normally found on magazine covers. The image came out so focused which was easy to allow my group and I to edit the image. If the makeup needed to be darkened, this would be easier. The image at the top has been cut out using the lasso tool, this is why the edges look so choppy.  As the picture was taken on a clear black background, it would be easy to smooth out the edges using some of the tools and effects in Photoshop. Also the way the image has been cut out allowed the image to transform so that we could make it smaller so that we could apply texts all around to make the magazine cover look realistic. This was the only image that allowed space at the top for the masthead to go and there were no complications when importing the masthead; it fit well unlike the other two images. This image was perfect for the magazine cover, there was enough room to fit the text and masthead on and it would be easy to edit and transform.

Beginning Process Of Making The Magazine

I began making the magazine cover, I started by having a white background but I changed the background to black to make it darker and allow the main image to stand out more as Dawn was wearing a white shirt. I then started by importing the empire sign from Google onto Photoshop. I used the lasso tool to go around the empire logo so there was no white outline on it. I then imported an image that I took of Dawn. I took the photo of Dawn using a low angle but I got a bit of the white wall at the top of the image as I took the pictures in the studio and it was hard to fill in the white with the black. I used the paint bucket tool to fill the white in with black but it didn't blend well together. As the filling didn't work I had to lasso out the image and then paste it onto the black background. This process took quite a while as I had to make sure it didn't look badly cut out. I still felt as though the image looked badly cut out so I tried to soften the edges so that it wasn't that noticeable. I used the selection tool to select the image I then selected feather radius and raised it to 6 pixels so that the edges were less defined so it blended well with the background.

Print Screens Of Video Footage

These are the print screens of the majority of the footage that we have filmed over the process of making this horror trailer.  I shot many scenes from different angles to see which ones would look the best and I wanted a variety of different shots in the trailer as some would work better than others for what was going on in the scene. Most of the footage is of Dawn and Sharna who play the main characters. My group and I went through every single video that was filmed and wrote down the numbers of the footage that we liked so that we could put it in our rough copy of our trailer. We chose all the footage as a group and if one of us didn't like it, it would be discussed and we'd see if it really needed to be involved in the trailer. As the trailer is required to be at least 1 minute and 30 seconds, I wanted to film a lot of so there was a good amount of videos to choose from. Every video was crucial as it could make up the whole duration of the trailer that we needed. Majority of the graveyard footage was shot in the daytime so whilst editing on Adobe Premiere 6, we made sure to make the video darker to make it appear as if it was filmed in the night time. The decision to make the videos in the graveyard darker was made because it would create a more creepy effect to the audience. Some of the footage was shot for audience reactions, this was done so that we could gain feedback to make our trailer the best it could be and make it fit with the horror genre. The feedback given from the audience would benefit my group and I as we could eliminate the videos that weren't so effective and pick out the ones that could potentially make the trailer stand out.

Deciding To Reject The Production Logo In Our Trailer

Update 20/01/15 : After consideration from all members in the group, we had decided that the production logo we created, will not appear in the actual trailer . I personally really don't like it, although it does have the iconography of horror in it and the font looks menacing, it just looks like the type of font that would be used in horror films in the 1960's, it's not the look any of us would like to have in the trailer, My group and I are thinking of not including a cut throat productions logo at all.

Horror Film Posters Inspirations

Creating Voice Overs For The Trailer

In the first screen shot it is named 'shari sinister voice'. The role that I had as part of the voice overs was to say 'you thought you could get rid of me' and 'you should've listened to your mother'. I recorded both of them in different voice effects as my normal voice didn't fit well with the sinister voice we were looking for. The helium one suited better for the 'you should've listened to your mother' one as it sounded like a little girl and little girls always appear creepy in horror movies. The effect I put on the 'you thought you could get rid of me' phrase was ambient vocals. This particular effect put an echo to my voice and made it sound more sinister. We were thinking of including this in the trailer when the final girl is in a scene, it's meant to be a taunting message from the villain to the victim. I played around with every single effect to see which was best suited for each phase and finally came to a decision. The male vocal effects wouldn't of been the best to use as for our horror trailer, there are no males starring in it, only females. I wanted to create really short phases to keep the audience engaged but I didn't want it too long to the point where the audience found it hard to keep up. There had to be a right balance as if the phase was too short, the audience may forget what had been said. I figured I should have minimum 6 words in the phase and maximum 9, luckily both phases I thought of had either 6 words or 8 words so I kept within the limits. I used GarageBand to create the voices and then it was transported onto a memory card so that we were able to open it in Adobe Premiere 6, it was very quick and easy.

This is another voice over that was created in GarageBand. This time the voice over was a conversation between Sharna and myself to warn her about going to the grave. I was playing the mother and it was a message that would later foreshadow events. The voice over I recorded said 'remember what I said, don't go to the place' and she replies 'yes mum'. My group and I decided to say 'that place' instead of grave so that it was ambiguous towards the audience, the mother could've been talking about anywhere and the audience wouldn't get a glimpse of where she was talking about until a few seconds later in the trailer. If the conversation was to be placed in the trailer, we all decided that it would go at the beginning to start off the scene. It would link with the other voice over recorded where it said 'you should've listened to your mother'. It would also make a connection to the narrative as bad things start to happen to Riley as she's disobeyed her mother and gone to a grave. We aren't sure whether to include the voice overs at all in the trailer but t was better to record them just in case we wanted to include them.

Potential Titles To Use In The Trailer

These are the potential titles that could be placed in between clips in the trailer. I feel having the right titles in my horror trailer will make it look better and make an audience want to watch more of it, I created a mindmap using a website called 'Text 2 Mind Map', having a mindmap is easy for me to visually organise the information that I had thought of. These are just some suggestions I've put forward to my group for the titles in the trailer, there are some really strong potential ones and there are others which I'm set on not having. In our group we have allocated different roles in the editing process and to help my role was to think of some titles. My favourite ones are 'A vengeance so strong' 'A fear so intense', the reason I like these are because they link with the narrative and are quite short and snappy. It's showing what the villain has come back for but not giving away what it was. I feel these would be effective if they go one after another and it builds up to having fast cuts near the end of the trailer. I have put words such as 'Obliterate' 'Eradicate' and 'Fear' as some ideas of what the villain may do. Obliterate and eradicate mean to destroy so with the narrative it could be that the villain will destroy the main girl in the trailer or it could be vice versa, the final girl defeating the villain like how it is in a typical horror movie. A convention of horror is the final girl surviving so it would make more sense with it being the final girl defeating the villain rather than the villain destroying the final girl. The title 'This Valentines Day' shows the time of when the film will be released. My group and I made the decision to have valentines day as valentines day is meant to be romantic and typically romantic films are watched on that day but we made it contrast by having a horror movie released on that day just to go against what the day is normally about.

'Consumed by evil' comes from the horror movie  'Evil Dead' that I watched prior to making my trailer. The title in evil dead said 'evil will consume you', I changed the words around so it wouldn't exactly be the same. I liked the title so much that I thought it linked with the narrative for my trailer so I mixed the words up.  The consumption of evil would come by the villain going after Riley (final girl). Riley's life will be consumed by Lilith (villain) as all Lilith does is attack her and stalk her. Riley's life will change after taking the necklace. 'The dead becomes awakened' could be effective as the villain has been awakened by the main girl taking the necklace. It connects well with the narrative and is short for the audience to see. I want the titles to be short as the audience may lose interest if they have to read some big phrases in the trailer. Titles should be kept minimal and blunt so that it evokes a scared feeling from the audience with the words used as well. 'Real fear will rip you apart' I like quite a lot as the main girl is meant to fear the villain. The word fear is highly associated with the horror genre as that's what feeling is evoked by the characters in the movies. They are scared of getting caught and killed by the killer.

I really like 'she didn't know that this would be her last mistake' but I feel that it may be a bit too long to use as a title. Also by using the phrase 'last mistake' it makes it seem as though the final girl is going to die. This subverts from what happens to the final girl, they are normally strong and are meant to survive in the film and destroy the villain. If we decide to kill the final girl, that takes us down a whole different route and her strength wouldn't be represented that well.
The ones that I really like, I will discuss with my group about which ones would be better and ask them if they have any others that they could think of.

Analysing Shot Types In My Horror Trailer Rough Cut

For the horror trailer, my group and I wanted a variety of shot types and angles to work with. I filmed most scenes in the trailer, I filmed from different angles so that my group and I could see which ones blended in well with the other clips and which ones looked better in general.

The first image is an establishing shot. It's shot in the daytime so it's clear what the main girl was doing. It shows the audience that the location is shot in a graveyard. Being in a graveyard already emits a supernatural feel for the trailer. I filmed this using a tripod so that the footage was steady, a hand held shot I feel would be better for chase scenes or to create a sense of fear and it was too early in the trailer for that. The second image is a close up shot of the necklace. The necklace symbolizes the evil villain coming back to life. The necklace is what really starts off the narrative as it belongs to Lilith Woods who is the villain in the movie and is taken by Riley Allard. The third image is a wide shot, the reason this shot is a wide shot is so that the audience can see the grave that no longer has the necklace on it and also this is the first appearance of Lilith the villain. This scene is already indicating danger is awaiting Riley as Lilith is hiding from a distance and is looking vengeful towards Riley. Her shirt is blooded which already gives off the impression that something bad has happened to her.
The fourth image is meant to look like an over the shoulder shot. It emphasizes the villain lurking and looking from places that Riley can't see. The audience know that Lilith is behind Riley but Riley is oblivious to any danger she may be in. We've done this shot to show how unaware Riley is of her surroundings, also the scenery looks so peaceful yet there is an evil force around which contrasts.

The fifth image is a low angle to show how the dead person is dominating over the camera. Again she is slightly being hidden by the grave and she looks menacing by standing and looking directly at the camera. The setting is still evident as it's in the graveyard. The sixth image is a long shot and shows how Lilith is walking over to Riley whilst she's sleeping. Once again Riley is oblivious to her surroundings and this gives an indication to the audience that something is about to happen. This is the first time the villain and the final girl are in the same shot together and the first time they'll come in contact with one another. Lilith creeping into her room already illustrates Riley's life being in jeopardy. As Lilith has been able to come into Riley's home this may create a fear feeling for the audience as your never really safe in your home if someone can come into your home and you don't hear or notice it. The seventh image is a hand held shot. This hand held shot was effective in showing Lilith coming for Riley outside. The hand held shot created more of a fear of Lilith, she looks intimidating. She's walking really slow and in some horror films I've watched, villains tend to walk slow and not run after their victim because they know they will catch them eventually, this was the case for films such as Prom Night, Halloween and Friday the 13th. It builds up adrenaline for the victim and makes them panic more. They think they've lost sight of the villain and that's when they get caught. It's beginning to be more apparent that Lilith is only after one thing and that one thing is revenge. The whole narrative won't explain what the revenge is for but that's part of using enigma codes to make the audience think of what it could be. Hopefully by now the audience will be able to link the necklace, Lilith and Riley together.

The eighth image is a medium shot of the villain. It's showing the setting, typically in horror films night time settings are used as everything becomes less visible and it makes it easier for a villain to pop out of nowhere as they were hidden by darkness. The only thing in the shot that is shown is Lilith. The white top stands out and draws attention to the blood on it and all the cuts and bruises on her face. The audience will have to wonder what she is doing and what is she staring at. The medium shot was effective in showing the costume and props used. The ninth image is an extreme close up shot of the villains face. In the clip the face is shown for a second to let the audience know that they are also being watched by Lilith. Her eyes are barely seen, they're consumed by darkness which represents her character personality: mysterious and a bit twisted. The tenth image is another close up shot. A pan was used to show how deranged the villain is by looking at the knife and the audience are left to think what is she really going to do with it. This is the arrival of the first weapon in the trailer. Weapons are part of the iconography used in horror so my group and I wanted to involve that in this movie. Although the sub genre is supernatural, having a weapon in it just shows how sinister the villain is. In the eleventh image it's a medium close up shot of an arm and the necklace in her hand. Typically in trailers, the footage doesn't go in chronological order so this will have the audience questioning if this person is dead and when did it happen. This shot was done to display an arm stretched out of Riley, it's not apparent yet whether she is sleeping or dead as we don't want to give away too much information to the viewers. The necklace being in her hand is effective as that's the reason why anything has happened. It's symbolism of all the danger and all the consequences that has happened from Riley taking the necklace in the first place. The final image is a high angle. It shows a high view of Riley in bed and Lilith laying next to her, Riley's blissfully unaware that she is now in bed with someone who wants to put her in harms way.

Different shot types/angles used: Establishing Shot
                                                     Close Up Shot
                                                     Wide Shot
                                                     Over The Shoulder Shot
                                                     Low Angle
                                                     Long Shot
                                                     Hand-Held Shot
                                                     Medium Shot
                                                     Medium Close Up Shot
                                                     Extreme Close Up Shot
                                                     High Angle

Production Logos

This is a possible production logo. The font gives off a menacing vibe and the colour red being used represents danger and is the colour of blood. Blood will be used in my horror trailer. The blood links with the word cut as well, when someone cuts themselves blood is apparent. The font looks like it's dripping blood and this is effective in making it look like it's real blood. The font was created on a website called 'Dafont'. The background being black and simple highlight the production logo even further as all eyes are on the logo that comes towards the screen and it is in a bright colour.

Update 20/01/15 : After consideration from all members in the group, we had decided that this will not be the production logo. I personally really don't like it, although it does have the iconography of horror in it and the font looks menacing, it just looks like the type of font that would be used in horror films in the 1960's, it's not the look any of us would like to have in the trailer, My group and I are thinking of not including a cut throat productions logo at all.

Film Magazine Covers I Like

I have chosen these six magazine covers that I like because I feel they truly represent the horror genre. Each of the characters play the villain in the film they star in except Hellboy. I chose the Hellboy one because he's portrayed as a villain to the characters in the film but to the audience you can tell that he wants to help and he's not the one who's inflicting pain, hes more of a hero. The Empire title for the Hellboy cover is effective as it's lit up in flames. Fire represents destruction, it burns everything and leaves nothing behind. This could illustrate Hellboy's character personality.

Most of the titles on the posters are in red and the colour red connotes danger and is the colour of blood. Blood is part of iconography used in horror films and I feel it's a major part in establishing the horror genre. The 'Scream' magazines involve other horror movies on the covers which I feel is what I want to do on my magazine cover to demonstrate the genre. I want the magazine cover to be shown to an audience and they automatically know that I'm creating a horror magazine cover. The Evil Dead magazine cover is my favourite one as on the title of evil dead there's a hand graphic next to it. This is representative of someone coming out of the grave and typically the first thing that's shown when someone comes out of a grave is the hand. It links with the narrative of the movie which is how I want my magazine cover to be. The images and titles I used on my magazine cover, I want it to link to the narrative so that it all makes sense and everything's connected. The image used on the Evil Dead magazine cover looks very weird and scary. To an audience its a little girl and it looks as though she's trapped somewhere trying to get out.

The Empire magazine cover on the top row in the middle shows all the different villains from other horror movies that were released at the time. It shows how most of the villains are deformed and are male. Stereo typically the villains in horror movies are male and go after women mostly. In my horror trailer, the villain happens to be a female which subverts from the typical villain shown in horror films. Although Entertainment magazine cover is not my favourite one, I still really like it. It's simple yet straight to the point. I like the fact the sole focus is on the villain, the scream mask is the most present thing on the magazine and the tagline next to it 'scream returns' is short and snappy and is pretty straightforward.

Clothing And Mise-en Scene

This is the clothing of the villain. As the shoes are not appropriate for the character she plays, we tend to film her from the knees up just so to shirt is seen. The costume she wears is a blooded white t-shirt. The white t-shirt with blood smears on it represents her death. She's a dead person who comes back to life, most people normally view ghosts as being white in movies so we thought the colour would fit well with how ghosts are perceived. The front of her shirt is covered in blood because the colour red represents danger and the blood is normally found in horror movies. The back of her shirt has blooded hand prints on it. The makeup was used to make her look more deathly and ghost-like. She has a big scar on the left side of her face and may be an indication towards how she dies although it won't be relevant for the narrative.

The image at the bottom is of the main character: Riley. She is the final girl and we took a picture of the necklace as part of a prop to show that this was the main part that drove the narrative forward. It's the reason why so many bad things happen in the trailer. The necklace symbolizes the reason for why the villain comes after the victim.

Location Shots

Locations we used were the park and the train station for our old narrative but the park will still need to be used for the new narrative as there's a chase scene in the woods. The train station was used to create a voyeuristic feel to the audience when our old narrative was about the final girl being stalked. We rejected this location because it wouldn't make sense with our new narrative.The graveyard is an important location for our trailer because that's where the conflict in the movie begins. Its the main location which leads to several consequences for the whole trailer. There are other locations that we will film at such as at Sharna's house, in the bedroom and living room. The alley way was used and also the studio in Norbury Manor Sixth Form. The bedroom was used a lot to show the villain creeping into the room to attack the victim and then scenes were shown of strangulation in both the alley way and in the bedroom. The studio was used to shoot some scenes but we rejected them as it looked too much like a school and that wouldn't fit with the narrative. Instead we used the studio to take pictures for the poster and magazine front cover. The pictures that I took in the studio ended up going on the final poster and magazine cover. The black sheet helped to make the room appear darker and it also contrasted with the white shirt worn by Dawn who played the villain in my horror trailer. It made the white stand out more and when I was taking the pictures, the black background mixed with the flash helped make the images appear more focused and highlighted the makeup, costume and props.

Test Shots

These are some test shots we've done for the magazine cover. We were looking at different angles and shot types to establish which would be best. There's a range of long shots, extreme close up shots, medium close up shots, close up shots and medium shots. I think for the magazine cover it would be best to have a medium close up shot as it will be able to illustrate the her makeup and her clothing. We tested both black and white backgrounds but on the white background it drowned out the white top because the background was the same colour as the top, whereas with the black background it made the white and red colours stand out more and even the makeup. The extreme close up shots pay close attention to Dawns makeup. In some of the medium shots, the necklace is evident as that's a vital part of our narrative. An image with her holding or looking at the necklace will be good for our magazine as it will link well with the title of our movie and also the narrative.


These are some test shots that I shot of Sharna for the poster. The original idea for the film poster was to have both Sharna and Dawn on it to show the villain and victim, good vs evil but we decided to reject the idea of having both of them on it. In the test shots I wanted Sharna to look afraid as the images would've went alongside Dawn so the character Sharna played would be frightened of the villain. In my opinion, the test shots weren't scary and didn't show anything. I don't think Sharna looks scared and in the end it would look better having Dawn on both the poster and the magazine cover. It allows the audience to see the connection and know that Dawn was the main character.

Here's a test shot from when we were filming our old narrative. We are rejecting this because the old narrative wasn't scary to an audience. We got audience feedback and decided to change the narrative to make it more scary. In the test shot you can see the villain was attacking the girl. It was going to be a strangle scene but it is no longer needed because we have a completely different narrative that doesn't involve a male villain. We were filming in Sharna's house as that was our primary location. To shoot these pictures we had to remove some furniture in her house to make the room look more isolated and this was easier as we didn't want many items being in the shots.

Names For The Characters

The name of our villain is called Lilith Woods. I researched into names that had bad connotations and decided to choose from there. I was struggling to find evil names so I used an evil name generator to help come up with a name. The evil name generator came up with the names shown in the picture and I liked Lilith the most. The name Lilith derives from the name of a demon in ancient Assyrian myths, Lilith alongside with Adam were the evil spirits of the world. I chose the last name woods because typically a location in horror films is the woods, and for my horror trailer we are filming a chase seen in the woods with the villain and the other character.

The name of our final girl is called Riley Allard. Riley denotes strength and the name Allard in French denotes brave and noble. A final girl will have to present herself as noble and strong in order to survive. Horror films are mainly all about survival and those traits are important factors to survive. I watched a horror movie called Detention and the final girls name was Riley Jones which gave me inspiration for my final girls name.

Shooting Schedules

The Characters

Dawn - The Villain (Lilith Woods)

Dawn is playing the villain because she has the look that the group wanted. Her face was easy to apply the makeup to and she's the only one who knew how to do makeup. Also she has been watching makeup tutorials for years so it was better having someone who could easily follow directions on how to apply makeup. I have pictures of how Dawn normally looks compared to how she looks with the makeup on. We were able to cast Dawn because she is in the group that I'm working in and she had the same timetable as most of the people in the group which made it easier for us to film as we all had the same free periods. It would've been harder to cast someone else as filming would revolve around their schedule and it may not be the same as ours. We needed someone who we could easily access and Dawn was easy because she does Media and is in the same group as us. She starred in my music video for AS Media so she was used to the camera following her around. Although she's playing two different roles she is still able to change herself and become a villain character. With the makeup on, Dawn is able to look scary and cause she has long hair adds more darker look as we can play about and put her hair over her face to look like the girl from 'The Ring'.

Sharna - Riley Allard (The Final Girl)

Sharna will play Riley because she is able to play a strong character and it was simple to cast her as she is in my group for the trailer which makes it easier to film her. Sharna also was the star of her music video in AS so she has experience behind the camera just like Dawn. We wanted another girl to play the final girl but her timetable wouldn't allow us to film her. The girl we originally wanted is a drama student so we felt that would be good as she'll know how to act well.

Pictures Of Group Filming

Our narrative required us to film in a graveyard and these are some shots that were taking of me and Lois filming. In the first shot, its quite out of focus but it's clear to tell that me and Lois are analysing the footage we had just shot. After the photo was taken we were deciding which clips to keep and which ones to delete so it would make it easier when it came to choosing to make the final edit. We also filmed from several different angles to see which would look best and we was viewing that footage on the camera as well. In the second image, I was filming a grave to show the necklace being on it and I was filming Sharna going to up to the grave. Being in the grave filming was quite weird and the atmosphere just didn't feel right, there were times when all of us thought we heard noises or where people walking near us would look at us strangely.