Stages of film

Stages:

The main storyline is four teens go to an illegal rave, but take a short cut, unfortunately they crash in to a tree while taking the short cut through the woods. Whilst trying to find help, two die slowly in a trap. The two which are left find a hut, they enter thinking they will find help. The hut is dark, empty, weird writing is on the walls and there is some savage looking knifes. However, when they go to leave the door slams and traps the girl inside.  We then hear screaming and the man leaves the girl behind... One survives.

Planning our trailer

Trailer Plan

Final decision

Genre: After thinking of what genres there are (Comedy, Thriller, Action, Horror, Rom com etc) We thought that a comedy would be hard to take advantage of all the different media techniques that we could use, also if we had chosen action it would involve a considerable amount of CGI which is hard to access in school.  After taking all of these things into consideration we settled on our genre and chose horror.   

Idea:  We got ideas for our film trailer from these three successful thrillers.  Severance, The Blair Witch Project and finally The Hills have Eyes.

Location:  We have decided to set our film in some woods at my friends farm as while researching horror films I realised that forests are common locations for this genre.  Also we think we shall film the trailer mostly as dusk as this can help transform your ordinary forest into a more mysterious location.

Cast:  Our cast will be fairly simple, we will need 3 oldish teens (me, Jack and Rosie) and will also include our friend Giles to act the weirdo type monster.

Props:  For our trailer we are going to need to use my Friends car, a shed on the farm, a chain saw, an axe and what ever else we can find that looks savage.

Audience:  The age certificate is going to be a 15 for our film therefore it will be aimed for audiences between 15 and about 25.  And obviously will be for the horror enthusiasts.

Music:  Because we have been taught how to use garage band on the Apple Macs we are going to create our music using that.  It will need to create tension through out the piece so will probably get faster and louder.  Also we will add sound effects to the trailer for extra effect. 

Piranha 3D

Piranha 3D 

Trailers are probably the easiest way to advertise a film to your audience. You can show trailers on television, in cinemas, Internet web sites like "YouTube, facebook and vimeo", and sometimes even on screens in towns. As there is such a wide range of ways to watch these trailers they can create a massive fan group before the film even enter the big screens.

When a film's are made the director will need to find a unique selling point for the movie.  This will help to market the new film and create a potentially larger target audience. Each film will its own unique selling point, hence the "Unique" bit.  However they may be similar to another movie, for example the cast may have the same stars in (Johny Depp, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston).  Although the USP is not always just the cast.  It also includes massive budgets (Avatar), years most scary film (Paranormal activities), and even 3D viewing like in Piranha 3D.

In class we watched the trailer for this film and had to write what sort of features we thought the film included.  The trailer was extremely well made so most of it was fairly easy to answer.  For example by the name of the it and the violence it had shown it as clear that the genre of the film was horror, to add to this it also had a scary sounding man narrating it.  

I think the music through out the trailer built up tension.  For example it starts of at a slow steady pace and then when the piranha's are heading towards the lake gets substantially faster, until finally the abnormally large piranha's reach the lake and the music is at its peak (much like in Jaws).  While this tension is building the camera angles change with the pace of the music, again adding to the tension.

The special effects in this movie creates its unique selling point as it takes the very latest high tech technology to create a film that you can watch in three dimensional form.  This special effect is really the icing on the cake for any sort of horror because when you would usually squirm with fright at a 2D film, you will now jump out of your seat screaming!

All of these techniques and effects equal a successful horror film this is why Piranha 3D has been given the age certificate of 18.

   

By analysing Piranah 3D I have found out some of the key features my trailer should have. For example our production work should have a unique selling point, it should also include music which builds up tention and editing that speeds up through out the trailer in time with the music.