Project Evaluation

For my A2 media coursework we were given the task to create a horror trailer along with creating a horror poster and a magazine cover for the film. I had to start the project by doing some research on horror trailers and look at magazine covers and horror posters. i did this to obtain an understanding of horror trailers and the common elements that occur in each of them. We had as a group, wrote up a treatment for the film so that we knew what to include in the horror trailer. The original plot included five friends but due to there being a shortage of actors, we reduced the group to three instead. The horror genre for our horror trailer is teen thriller.

The horror trailer that we created as a group did include many conventions of real media products as we used our understanding of existing horror films to give us an idea of what we were going to base our horror trailer on. As I had done some analysis on exisintg horror trailers, I found that close ups, extreme close ups and medium shots were the most frequently used camera shots in horror trailers. Within our horror trailer, we used extreme close ups and close ups to show anxiety. Moreover we used a birds eye view of when a character was fending off an unknown being which gave the impression that he was being watched but was unaware of where the theat was. As the plot of our film revolves around the idea of isolation, we used medium shots which created a sense of that. We didn't use many camera movements within our horror trailer and this is where we challenged commin conventions of media products. There was little camera movemnt at times. For example where the blood stain of the hand was shown, a panning shot was used. The transition we used were very typical of horror trailers. There was a lot of text, fades and cuts.

With the horror trailers I had researched and watched, I found that the most common horror theory to occur was 'the final girl theory'. So as a group, we thought we would play with this theory and have a man being the 'last person standing' which is very rare to occur in horror films and this also challenges conventions of real media products. Furthermore, by having a man the last person standing, it challenges the male gaze theory. The male gaze theory explains that horror films have been created for the entertainment of men. The male gaze theory has been challenged as we had used a man for the last person standing who had gone through this pain and struggle. We done this with the thought that in the 21st century, many women have also come to enjoy watching horror films, therefore with this in mind, I believe the male gaze theory is a little out dated. We had made the character quite logical and someone who did most things correctly and someone who a male audience could relate to. We edited our horror trailer in a way so that the trailer would show some of the exciting parts of the film. This leaves the audience wanting more which is the objective of all film trailers. The majority of our horror trailer includes common conventions of horror trailers. We didn't want our horror trailer to be too unconventional, otherwise it would not be recognised as a horror trailer.

One other part of my project was as a group we needed to combine a magazine cover and a horror poster with the horror trailer which I think we had acomplished successfully. The existing posters I had looked at showed that all of the victims had a pure white glow around them. I think this was created so that the audience is able to see who the victim or victims are. Our poster that we created showed the victims in a frightenining situation even though the whole situation isn't clear, the character's expressions are. This is how the victims are recognised by the audience. The villain is also shown in the horror poster we have created but as a shilouette figure. The villian is never identified in either the horror trailer or the poster to keep the audience intriuged. The magazine cover we had produced was a complete and utter contrast to the horror trailer and poster we had created. It was a photo of one of the actors in the film as himself, the actor in person rather than as the character. We as a group decided to do this as looking at existing magazine covers, we noticed that male actors are usually presented in their acting rold if they are on the front of magazine covers. As the villain hadn't been exposed in either the poster nor the horror trailer, it inserts the question into the audience's mind as to 'is this man the villain in the film or not?', which then again draws in the audience as the identity of the villain is disguised. I think that even though the magazine cover is very different from the other two media products, it allows a balance and lets the audience see another side to the actor.

Technology was significant in this project as it was used in every single stage of this production. It was used in the research stage where sites such as youtube, wikipeida and imdb had to be used to research and find out about existing horror films and the similarities in horror films. As well as that, I also used microsoft excel to create bar charts when i was analysis horror trailers. This was helpful when I was looking at the similarities in horror trailers and how to challenge those similarities to make our trailer less formulaic. Imovie was much easier to use as I am already fond with it as are other people in my group. We used many transitions, fade to black, quick cuts, slowing down certain parts of the trailer and speeding up some parts. Adding sound and music and syncing it to the fast pace of the trailer was also some editing that was done. We had also inserted a scream for when there was a blackout in the trailer to emphasise the blackout. The trailer was not in linear order, but was actually jumbled up in accordance to our storyboard. I found this technique to occur in many horror trailers so we did the same and gave the audience a quick bit of excitement before having the trailer quite calm and then excelling it again. we wanted our trailer to be quite clear and look fairly professional but due to the camera we were given, some scenes were quite blurry, for example when the party scene occured. Although it was slighty hazyfor the party scene, it did give the impression that every there was slightly drunk or not in their right mind which worked well with what was going on in the scene and the fact it is a teen horror/thriller.

In order to improve our trailer, I think we could have firstly used less text and I gathered that fom my audience feedback. Rather than sending out my questionnaire online, I did so by hand by printing it off on microsoft word and later collecting the completed questionnaires. The reason for this is because I did not have sufficient access to the internet so I had to use an alternative to obtain my results. Uploading the trailer on Youtube has allowed people to look at it worldwide and comment on it too.

In conclusion, I believe that our horror trailer was quite successful,. Some scenes did have to be cut out due to the lack of recources but i think we had overcome this efficiently and still produce a good project. Me and my group were quite please with out magazine cover, horror poster and our horror trailer.