Trailer Planning

Initial Ideas:

To start my planning of the horror trailer, I decided to create a spider diagram of my initial ideas of what we could have a a plot. I came up with 5 different ideas and expressed them with small descriptions onto a spider diagram:

Once looking over the ideas and seeing how much content we could get out of each, we decided to chose the idea of "Film Project". This idea would include exploring into the suspected suicide of a girl a group of friends new and whilst doing this we could create a film project documenting what we had discovered along the way with cameras. The group of friends go to the woods where she apparently killed herself to see if there were any clues as to what had really happened to her, as they do not fully believe that she committed suicide and instead have suspicions that she may have been murdered. During there exploration around the woods, one of the friends discovers an item placed within the grass, as they look up they see a figure standing in front of them, turning to run away as fast as they can taking the object with them. Once they return back to a home, strange things begin to happen as they think the thing has followed them back, but instead he has come for the object they took.

Locations: 

Once we had come up with the idea for our horror trailer, we had to think about the locations we could use to make it possible. We had initially thought of changing the idea of the woods to someone we thought would be more scary and use an abandoned house on the Army Barracks. This idea was quickly change back to the original of the woods however, as it was just too dangerous for us to go to the Army Barracks.
We chose to use the Kings mill woods to shoot in investigation around the area of where the girl died. This was a public place, making it easy for us to access and easy to get the filming done quickly. We did however, have to go at a time where the woods would not be busy with people dog walking, This meant we had to go there when it was dark, but this worked out well for us as it added tension and made it have a scarier feel to it.
We then decided to shoot the rest of the trailer at one of the group members houses. We chose to shoot at Beth's house as the layout of her house worked out well for some of the shot ideas we had and wanted to us. It also worked well as her family members were away meaning we could get all the filming done easily.

I have taken some pictures of the locations we used:

Film Title Ideas: 

When we were trying to think of a title for our horror trailer we decided to use a horror title generator. We were struggling to think of names, so thought a generator would be a good idea. These were the results of that generator:

When reading over them and seeing where they would be placed within our video, we concluded that we wanted the title to simply be one word. We decided on this as we thought it would have more of an impact upon the audience and is a lot more striking.
This left us with two options; Insanity and Apparition. We decided on using APPARITION. We discarded Insanity because we felt like this could be a false advertising of the plot of our trailer and with the definition of Apparition meaning "a ghost or ghost like image of a person", we felt this fit more.

Tag Line Ideas: 

Once we had come up with the title, I thought the next best thing to do would be to create a tag line to match the title. We tried to think of a few ideas our self to do with haunting and ghosts, basically following the conventions of our trailer. These were the ideas that we came up with:

We struggled deciding on which tag line to use between the choice of; Death Will Have Its Way, An Inevitable Doom and If You Dare If You Seek You Will Find...
When looking at the layout that the trailer was going to take, we decided on using the final option from above of IF YOU DARE, IF YOU SEEK, YOU WILL FIND... We chose this as we wanted the tag line to be long enough that we could split in between certain shots. It also meant that the title of Apparition could appear afterwards as it follows on well from the tag line and the title will therefore be the last thing that people will see and remember.

Choosing a font: 

To help me decide on the best font to use for our title and tag lines I decided to assist the help of a website, www.dafont.com. This website gave a massive range of different fonts that could be used for a horror genre. After flicking through hundreds I condensed it down to 5 different fonts to choose from. I used the title of our film in the variety of fonts to see which would fit the best and here are the different fonts:

Accord SF

Castellar

Segoe script

Tennessee heavy SF

Trajan pro

We concluded that the font we are going to use was called TRAJAN PRO. I believed this to fit in very well within the trailer as it was not too complicated but still caught your eye. It also worked very well against the static background we chose to be behind the text in the trailer.

Character mise en scene:

PROTAGONIST:

Clothing- 

For the protagonist I want her clothing to be basic and simple. The clothing must be comfortable to change from the scene of investigating and running in the woods to lounging about at home. From looking through my research, it is very common for a simple top and pair of jeans or leggings to be worn. From this I have decided that my main character will wear a simple top and a pair of jeans. The other two girls will also wear similar clothing to this to make them seem equal. 

Make up-  

I would like the make up to be very similar to the clothing that will be worn. Something simple that does not over power or something that would distract away from any facial expressions that will be portrayed from the character. This will also be the same for all of the girls and will be "natural" with minimal mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow etc. 

Hair-

I do not think it matters whether the girls have their hair up or hair down, it would just need to follow the theme of the natural look. Because of this I would prefer that if the hair was to up that it was in a simple low ponytail or a messy bun to once again keep the natural feel of the narrative. 

ANTAGONIST:

Clothing-

We will be giving our antagonist a mask to wear therefore there is not need to worry about make up or hair for the male. The only thing that needs to be thought about is the clothing he will wear to try make him look scary and creepy to fit the trailer. We also wanted his body to be difficult to see to focus on the white mask that we want to contrast dark clothing that we think the antagonist should were. Simple black clothing will be worn as will not be seen clearly in the dark. 

Storyboard and Shot list: 

Storyboard: 

Shot List: 

Script: 

Rough Script: 

Final Script:

Sound for the trailer: 

Although our trailer does include speech, we still feel the need to include music through out the video even if it just to be in the background. None of our group has any skills developing music and we therefore decided to use soundtracks of a horror genre that has been created and shared onto YouTube. We asked permission from the creators of the soundtrack if we could use it as part of our trailer to which they agreed. We selected a range of soundtrack and listened to all to see which would fit the best and whether we would maybe need more than one. 

Once looking through these different sounds we found that we needed more than one soundtrack and decided on the following: 

First draft: 

Audience feedback: 

Teacher feedback: 

"Instead of recording the characters to tell the story of what has happened the girl Leila, include shots of what happened and where it was. This would link this to later on within the trailer where you go and investigate in the same place. Better to show than it is to tell."

" The shot needs to be lighter where the villain is walking towards the house. The only time you can see it is when you are watching it in pitch black. This would work okay if you were watching the trailer in the cinema, however at a home as an advert the lighting needs to be lighter in order to make it clearer."

"Try to market the mask used and make it a key feature within the film. Do some research into the history of them types of masks to try and find a way to help it to increase the awareness of your film. You can then use it as a give away in your magazine and the poster shall then have a bigger effect seen as though the mask is the main image."

"Check that all text included in the trailer is the same size and is centered in the frame. I believe just one is slightly off center but I like the choice of font and the fact you have placed in on a static background linking to the use of handheld cameras."

Mask:

The mask that is used within our trailer was simply chosen from our drama department as we did not want the face of our villain to be seen by the audience. However the mask does have some history to it was can be beneficial for our trailer. 

This type of mask that we used was original used in Greek theaters. 

Origination of mask:

Participants wore masks during certain worship ceremonies and rituals for the Greek God Dionysus. The Greek writer Thespis originally covered his face in white led during performances. Eventually, Thespis took the idea of wearing masks during ceremonies and incorporated white linen masks into his stage performances.  

Reasons for wearing masks:

There are several reasons why Greeks wore masks during performances. Plays were performed in large, outside amphitheaters. Due to the size of the stage and the positioning of the seating, many audience member not able to clearly see what was happening on stage. Masks were used as a way to convey emotion to every audience member. Each mask was designed to show a certain emotion through the use of exaggerated facial expressions, which were readable by all audience members. This ensured that all audience members understood the tone and emotion of each character. Greek performers also wore masks because a limited number of actors were allowed on stage. Initially, one performer was allowed on stage at a time. Through the use of masks, different characters and emotions were established during plays. Eventually, three actors were allowed on stage. Also, there were no women actors in Greek theater, so men wore female masks for female roles.

Description of masks: 

Masks used in Greek theater were made of plaster-soaked linen, wood or leather. The masks features exaggerated facial expressions portraying emotions such as happiness, sadness and anger. The mouths were large cut-out or carved openings that enabled actors to speak loudly and clearly. Eyes were clearly drawn on the mask. Pupil holes were punched out so actors could see. Animal or human hair was often added to the mask as facial hair. Masks used to represent female characters features larger eyes and larger mouth holes. 

Greek masks today: 

Greek masks are still used in certain theatrical productions. Many modern directors feel that using Greek masks during Greek tragedy and comedy revivals is essential in capturing the spirit and theme of the play. 

Old Greek Mask 

Our Mask Used