The Last Rave Trailer

Poster and Poster research

After looking through existing film posters I decided that this one for "The Abandoned" had the greatest effect on me. The poster looks like it has been merged together with another similar picture to create a more three dimensional effect. The back ground consists of a foggy or smokey setting with half of a head showing from within a boat. The title of the film has been produced in a battered looking font and been selected in the colour red, this is a connotation of death which along with the layering of images and the smokey back ground results in a very eery poster. Because I thought these three factors worked so well I tried to make sure we tried them out on our groups poster.

Poster design one

This is our first design for a poster to advertise our film "The Last Rave".  Experimenting with the programme "Paint Shop Pro" we managed to layer two images one top of each other then change the transparency of the top image. To create the smokey effect we already had the fog from the original image as it was a foggy day, we just had to decide on what to include in the fore ground. Because an axe had been included in a variety of our shots in the trailer we thought it would be a good image to chose. When setting the transparency we tried to make the axe seem fainter than the background, hoping that as you could see the axe less clearly it would add to the uncertainty about weather it was there or if it was just your eyes playing tricks on you.  

Poster design two



With our second poster design we took a more abstract approach. Because the target audience for our film is late teens to late 20's my group and I decided on giving the poster a more modern effect than eery like the previous design. Although I personally think that the traditional eery posters makes you want to watch the film more it was still very useful taking a completely different approach to our second design as then when we got our questionnaire results back we would know which technique was preferred, resulting in us picking the right poster to use. i decided to give my questionnaires to a class of year 12's as they would be in the main age group that we are aiming our film at. 

Questionnaire and results

Audience Poster Questionnaire Data

Which poster do you prefer? (1: A short cut to death) (2: The road to death)

          16 people said they liked poster 1 best.

          8 said poster 2 looked best. 

What do you think the genre of film do you think each poster is advertising?

         Poster 1) 20 people said horror 4 people thought it was advertising an action film.

         Poster 2) 18 people thought horror 4 thought action and 2 person thought sifi.

Which poster makes you want to see the film more?

        Poster 1) 14 people

        Poster 2) 10 people

Do you like the title or would you change it? If so what would you change it to?

        Yes) 18

        No) 4

        Other) One person said "Rave, as it is more catchy" the other person thought it should be called       "Short Cut to Death"  

In your opinion do you think the font used fits the in with the genre of the poster?

       Yes) 20

       No) 4

which poster do you find more eye catching?

       Poster 1) 9 people

       Poster 2) 15

Is there anything you would change about poster one?

        Yes) 3

        Suggestion) "I would give it a black boarder", "Make the tag line bigger", "change the title and thw whole poster is too dark to see what it is clearly"

        No) 21

Is there anything you would change about poster two?

        Yes) 4 people said they would change it

        Suggestion) "Make the title bigger", "Make the tag line bigger", "I would like to see more resemberlance of horror", "Move the title to the bottom of the poster"

        No) 20

Research analysis

After getting the results back from my questionnaire we have changed our final poster so that it is slightly lighter. Although there was other ideas for improvements other results contradicted these ideas there for we decided not to make all of the changes. 

Filming

Low down angle of character checking out the car after it breaks down in the forest on the way to their rave. We have used a low angle shot as it shows a lot of the muddy groud, this shows that they have driven on a rarely used road which creates a secluded, alone feel.




For one of our scenes we wanted to have Rosie walking through the forest and an axe swings down behind her. This meant we had to carefully attached an axe to some rope and loop it over a branch of the tree. We waited until Rosie was well past the point where the axe would swing until jack let go of it. Jack was out of shot at all time.

This picture is of Rosie setting up the tripod at a low angle to record the teens' walking through the forest.

Stages of this shot. From the camera to Jack, who is out of shot, to Rosie walking past where the axe swings.

Over the shoulder tripod shot of me strangling Jack with an axe. We didn't end up using this one as we thought we would leave his death as a mystery so we did n give to much of the story line away in the trailer.

Point of view shot from one of the characters. By having it hand help and from their point of view it emphasises the creepiness of the random building in the forest. 

Animatic

http://www.slideshare.net/rosiea2media/animatic-7357990

Our animatic helped us to get a quick insight into what our trailer will look like but in picture form. Obviously it did not seem as scary becuase it is hard to build tension with photographs and no sound but it gave us a guide when it came to filming, even if we did not use all of the stages in our animatic. We took the picutes using my digital slr and editied and made them into a series using an Apple mac. 

Representation in our trailer

Characters:

The characters in our trailer are supposed to represent stereo typical working class teenagers who would be likely to attend illegal raves and parties. To achieve this we carefully thought about what each character should wear and how they would act. The clothing we chose includes things like New Era caps, hoodies, jeans, and trainers. Also the way in which they wore this clothing showed that they were teens. For example jeans were worn low so boxers were visible, this is a connotation of gangster lifestyle which an American audience could also relate to if our film was to successful. By wearing well known brands like New Era, Nike, and Adidas shows that they are conscious about their image as these brands are popular with young people/teens. We also ensured that the way our characters speak accurately represents the language which modern day teenagers use.       

Mise-en-scene:

We have chosen to set most of our trailer in a forest, however we have a couple of shots from a rural village where the teens live.  The forest represents mystery as you can only see as far as the next few trees.  We also waited until there was a dull, foggy evening to film.  As when we filmed some of our original footage it did not give a scary enough feeling for a horror movie.   This location and weather contrasts with the safe, nicely weathered setting of the rural village they set off from. 

Sound:

We have chosen to use diegetic sound as well as non diegetic. the scene with me driving around a corrner with my music playing is a diegetic sound. We decided to have my music turned up loud so that it helps to portray stereo typical teenagers. The non diegetic sound that we have added is the sound track, this helps to build up the tension and makes the trailer seem more professional.  

Props:

the props we have used are a torch, some bags and an axe. the rucksacks have been used to make it look more like the teenagers are actually going to a rave in the forest. the torch adds to the uncertainty of what might be around the corner as it emphasises the fact that it is getting dark. With the axe we got verious different shots of it hanging, sticking into a tree, being held and a shot of it swinging. Although we did not use all of the shots the few selected worked towards creating a scary trailer as an axe can be seen as a murder weapon therefore it is a connotation of death.

Magazine Cover Analysis

This "Total film" poster for "Inception" has be laid out to suit the style of the film and includes information about other films.  It also includes different denotations and connotations.  These are the key factors that will effect how successful your magazine cover is and will also contribute to the total number of views your film will have.

Almost all of the magazine covers I have looked at have included a big picture of their main character set in the middle of the page with a title and short sentence beneath it.  On this particular magazine cover the main picture is of Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a suit and holding in his gloved hands a silenced pistol, although you can not actually see all of it.  The connotation of the gun along with the gloves and suit gives us the impression that this character will be sinister.  The fact that his face is shaded on one side could possibly give us the impression that Cobb, the name of the character on the cover, has two different sides to him or perhaps a hidden secret.  The title and general wording on the cover is in a font which is sharp and formal looking which means it will be taken seriously my most when the look at it.  The title of the film and magazine is bigger than the other writing on the cover.  The graphic designers would have done this so that when people glanse at it they will be able to read the title first, which may draw them into the magazine and if it doesnt then at least that word may stick in their head which will help to premote the film.  Bold colour has also been used to draw the protential customers in, however they have only used it on a couple of lines as if they use it too much of it it will create the opposite effect, so nothing will stand out.

Behind the wording and the picture of Cobb is a back ground of an urban environment.  this relates well to the film as alsmost all of it is set in these urban environments which inturn adds to the uncertenty of the film.     

Story board

This story board is our original version. However after filming these shots and watching them back on the macs we decided that they did not look scary enough because it was filmed when it was still light. After darkening the footage on "I movie" we decided that our original clips still didn't quite cut it so we did another story board. The focus of this was to think of shots that can cause more panic and uncertainty. If we could do successfully I knew along with the editing and music our trailer will be very effective which in turn will result in a thrilling trailer.

This is our second story board, some of the steps are the same as before. For example the three teens' loading up the car worked well as the urban housing estate was a stereotypical environment for teenagers who attend raves to live. When it came to filming the scenes we had added in it proved surprisingly challenging. We went out a few days after doing our new story board, but we let it get too dark, even thought we could see clearly, the camera was not picking up the moving image. Despite the camera not working very well at dust we still wanted to try and achieve an eary feel  in the new scenes, to our luck in the next couple of days there was an extremely foggy evening. This created that effect perfectly and the camera picked it up clearly.