Potential Endings For Trailer

To find ideas for our ending, I have watched several teaser trailers of the slasher sub-genre. Below are examples of inspiration.

• At 0:49 seconds, the killer attempts to kill his victim. The trailer ends with a blackout (plus the film title) after the killer lashes his weapon.
• This ending is effective in terms of audience positioning; the audience become shocked as they almost witness a killing. 
• The ending also entices an audience, as they do not actually know if the killer killed his victim. This can therefore make an audience more keen in seeing the film.

• At 1:07 a low angle shot denotes the killer ready to attack the main girl.
• The low angle shot effectively places the audience in the main girl's position, as the audience see the killer from her perspective.
• The tilt adds onto the climax.
• On-screen diegetic sound is used with the girl screaming as the killer approaches her. This also makes the scene more intense.
• Scary music is used in the background to build the climax. 
• The scene ends with a blackout. This is an enticing tool for the audience, as they do not know if the girl has been killed or not.
• The killer's mask appears at the end along with the film title. The close up faces the audience with the killer, another enticing tool. 

Most slasher teasers tend to denote the killer at the end ready to attack a victim. This is then usually followed by a blackout with the film title appearing. I like how Friday The 13th (2009) show a close up of the killer's mask at the end of their teaser, as it is almost as though the audience are face to face with the killer and given a direct address which invites them into watching the film. We could use these elements in our teaser.

Evaluation Questions - 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning

Primarily, we used the internet for our research and planning as this was our most accessible source of a wide range of ideas, conventions and resources. For example. websites such as horror.wikia.com came in useful when looking up conventions for our genre. Other websites we used included wikipedia and www.horrorfilmhistory.com when researching our genre.

We did a lot of blog posts on blogger in our research and planning, for example deconstructions of genre and practical tasks looking at locations, researching where would be a good place to film.  Another way we did research was by using the online survey website survey monkey to conduct a survey into initial ideas that we had for our film. We collected results from various questions to help us plan our actual piece. 

We also used online sources such as YouTube a great deal, as there are lots of helpful previous a2 pieces available, tutorials and sound clips, as well as other online resources such as Incompetech, Dafont and Freesfx, for sound a font downloads. 

Construction
To film our piece we used a standard video camera that one of us had at home and used a tripod from school. It was a basic video camera and so there was no difficulty in getting to grips with it's controls. 

Editing

During editing, we used Final Cut Pro, which is a software used on the Macs. Originally, we began editing using iMovie and it's basic editing possibilities but due to it's slow speed and temperamental nature we chose to explore other options and were led to using Final Cut Pro. As an editing software, Final Cut allowed us to use pre-existing effects such as 'Bad TV' in order to create a fuzzy, white noise effect on our footage. We had a wide range of effects and transitions at our disposal within the construction phase of our teaser trailer. 

Another part to editing is the use of typography, which we worked quite hard on. We used a font downloaded from dafont.com called 'Scream Again', which we manipulated on photoshop later. We also added effects and transitions on the text to make it seem more conventional. 

Sound
For our sound we used a variety of sources, mentioned earlier. We also played around with the sound editing a lot, layering sounds, changing volumes etc. We found sound from real films e.g. the scream at the end, as well as freesfx for sounds such as heavy breathing. We also used incompetech, which is a library of free music that you can download and use in your own projects. Using our genre research and knowledge about sound, we decided on several soundtracks which we could then layer in various ways, to create eerie, tension building sounds, as seen below. 

Photoshop
We used Photoshop to create our poster as well as design a lot of the typography used throughout the whole media package e.g. the 'knock knock' logo. When designing the poster and website I used Photoshop to manipulate the text further, using blood smears/splatters and my newly developed Photoshop skills to make the typography look even more professional. I found that this was more effective than just using the font on a plain background as it conformed more to the genre and gave the audience an idea of the narrative. 

We also used Photoshop to create the background for our website, instead of using separate images, as we felt like this might be a simpler way to design the website. We used the same typography and fonts as previously used, to make sure that all our ancillary items matched, and made sure we included all the necessary items on our website e.g. reviews, a hashtag, the menu etc.

Wix

Wix is a cloud-based web development platform that allows users to create websites and mobile sites, through the use of their online drag and drop tools. This was a very helpful tool as we had some basic HTML knowledge, but certainly not enough to actually create a whole website from scratch. The drag and drop options were useful in that way, as the code was already written for us. Whilst designing the website, we did use some code though that was written by us, learned using online tutorials. We combined our Photoshop skills, HTML skills and our trailer to create an interesting website using media technologies. One feature of the website is the menu, which we wrote the code for. We had to use code to make the text the font 'Big Caslon', as that was what we were using throughout our promotional package. We also wanted the hovering colour to change to red, so we had to use our HTML skills learned to create the proper code, leading to results like this:

Evaluation
We mainly used social media to get our trailer out into the public eye, as we are aware that this is what gets people talking. We also used a hashtag, #KnockKnock as part of our promotional package, as we felt this was quite a current and trendy way to spread the word. We used YouTube to upload and share the trailer. We also made use of Facebook and Twitter to share our media piece, and added share buttons on our website, as well as icons on our poster. People posted comments as part of the evaluation so we could gain some feedback and criticism as to what went well, and what could be improved.

Evaluation questions - 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Trailer

For our media products we had to follow certain conventions and challenge forms in order to make them look professional and reach out to our audience. By thoroughly researching and deconstructing existing media products and their narratives it helped us have more knowledge of conventions of genre that my group were going challenge and recreate. When deconstructing we chose certain areas of these trailers that we needed to look at to source inspiration for our own media products.

This included researching conventional locations for slasher films and actually going and scouting them too. We had to find a suitable exterior of a house as well as interior, so did blog posts exploring both. We found that exterior locations are often large, detached houses in remote locations. Inside locations were also spacious and homely.

We ended up conforming to this convention as we felt it was important for the narrative, as the characters were not able to escape and run away for help, so therefore the isolated location helped. 

• Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages, including the state of equilibrium at the start, the disruption of equilibrium and then the reinstatement of equilibrium at the end. We heavily conform to this theory. 
• In our trailer, we start with a happy party environment, with mid and close up shots of alcohol, laughing and talking, as well as up-beat non-diegetic music, indicating a party. The mood changes through the use of typography and sound. 
• The upbeat music ceases and a sinister boom and knock at the door is heard, along with creepy typography with a flickering effect used, reading ‘…who’s there?’. 
• On the other hand, we subvert the theory as we do not reinstate the equilibrium at the end, seen through the last shot of the killer slowly turning his head, at a slightly low angle, adding to the suspense, edited with non-diegetic screams and flashing up typography. 
• We did this because leaving the conclusion as an enigma is an important convention for the trailer form.

Final Girl - Carol Clover

Steve Neale declares that ‘genres are instances of repetition and difference’, and this is certainly true for the slasher genre, probably one of the most conventional sub-genres in horror. We conformed to many of the classic conventions of the slasher film to make it accessible for the audience. One convention we kept was the use of the ‘Final girl’. We used a brunette actress; plain makeup, plaited hair and braces, making her seem asexualised, similar to Sidney Prescott in ‘Scream’. We did actor scouting for this, finding the perfect 'final girl'.

Website

In order to understand conventions of horror movie websites, I deconstructed a few to see what was conventional but also see what we could include to develop the conventions. We saw that there were conventions such as: links, social media, reviews, embedded trailers.

We decided to use a font that looked like it had been scratched manically in the door and discovered the font ‘Scream again’ on the website ‘dafont.com’. When designing the poster and website I used Photoshop to manipulate the text further, using blood smears/splatters and my newly developed Photoshop skills to make the typography look even more professional. I found that this was more effective than just using the font on a plain background as it conformed more to the genre and gave the audience an idea of the narrative. The website conformed to conventions of a real media text as it included a lot of the usual elements e.g. links, trailer, reviews, social media links.

Poster

For our poster, we made it slightly unconventional by not including an image of the 'final girl'. For example, the poster for 'the Strangers' above.

During deconstructions of posters we found that often the killer was seen in mysterious lighting or circumstances, or even in the location of the film. For example, Jason Vorhees was pictured at Crystal Lake. To conform we put our killer through the peep-hole of a door, to relate to the title, 'Knock Knock'. Other conventions we conformed to was including social media, a tagline and credits >>, to make the image seem as professional as possible.

Slasher genre continued

'A genre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world' - Jane Feuer 1992

'Recently, structuralists and feminist theorists, among others, have focused on the way in which generically defined structures may operate to construct particular ideologies and values, and to encourage reassuring and conservative interpretations of a given text' - Bernadette Casey

Origins and conventions

• I already did a very in-depth post about this, linked below.

• READ MORE HERE

Social background 

• As many slasher films came out in the 70s and 80s, it is important to look at the social and cultural backdrop in which the film was made

• At this time, society was becoming more liberal, women more empowered and the feminist movement was in full swing.

• Perhaps slasher films could be a response to that - hugely violent against women, often said to be misogynistic or so unnecessarily violent - if you look at the Final Girl theory 

• Carol Clover wrote the book 'Men, Women and Chainsaws', which focused on the positioning of what she calls 'The Final Girl' in relation to the audience. Most theorists label horror films as a male-driven genre, Clover points out that in a lot of horrors (especially slasher), the audience is 'forced' to identify with the Final Girl. While the dominant killer's subjective point of view may be male within the narrative, the male viewer is still rotting for the Final Girl to overcome the killer. We can see this operating in Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. In horror films, women are usually murdered because of their having ha sex, or their desire for sex.

From the book:

• The image of the distressed female most likely to linger in memory is the image of the one who did not die: the survivor, or Final Girl. She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again. She is abject terror personified. If her friends knew they were about to die only seconds before the event, the Final Girl lives with the knowledge for long minutes or hours. She alone looks death in the face; but she alone also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued (ending A) or to kill him herself (ending B). She is inevitably female. In Schoell's words: "The vast majority of contemporary shockers, whether in the sexist mold or not, feature climaxes in which the women fight back against their attackers—the wandering, humourless psychos who populate these films. They often show more courage and level headedness than their cringing male counterparts." 

Popularity 

• Popular at the time, in the 70s and 80s when Craven was creating slasher. 

• Revival in 1996 when Scream was made

• Scream is very much aware that it is a movie, and has fun with this. The film features numerous in-jokes and references to other horror films. The victims in Scream are quite self-aware: they each make clear their familiarity with, and make fun of, teen slasher and horror films, which sets up their fairly ironic responses to the film's situations. 

• Since this, there have been remakes of basically every successful slasher in the 70s and 80s: 

• Halloween several times, Texas chainsaw several times, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th several times, Black Christmas, Prom Night, I spit on your grave etc.

• Cabin in the woods 2012 attempted to do something similar to Scream, by revitalizing the slasher genre as a critical satire on torture porn 

• Now, generally less popular, HOWEVER...

Current trends

• The slasher film has shifted over time more recently, to a more hardcore, violent, gore-filled 'torture porn'.

• Filmmaker Eli Roth's Hostel (2005), released in January 2006, was the first to be called "torture porn" by critic Edelstein, but the classification has since been applied to Saw and its sequels (though its creators disagree with the classification),The Devil's Rejects (2005), Wolf Creek(2005), and the earlier films Baise-moi (2000) and Ichi the Killer (2001).

• Violence, torture, nudity, sex, mutilation and sadism are all common themes in this genre

• Saw is the most profitable series of all time in horror box office

• Stephen King and zombie legend George A. Romero both celebrate torture porn as a genre

• Films like Antichrist by Lars Von Trier also influenced by this genre. 

Narrative + Theory

• Bordwell and Thompson (1980) defined narrative as ‘a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time’. 
• Syd Field, an American screenwriter has said that in any good film, the audience will be grabbed by the first ten minutes, implying narrative is imperative to a film’s success. Due to the trailer form of our piece 60 seconds), we had to use a restricted narration in order to achieve the audiences interest, as this is often used in the horror genre. 
• Our trailer offered subjective character identification, meaning the viewer is given unique access to what a range of characters see and do. For example, a range of teenagers were used as characters in our trailer, to conform to conventions of the genre.
• Vladamir Propp’s theory of narrative, which he devised from a study of folktales, suggests that characters have the role of narrative. He came up with seven different character types each with a function, including the ‘hero’, ‘villain’ and ‘princess’. 
• Our trailer conforms to some of these archetypal characters, and subverts others. For example, our hero is female, rather than male, but this does conform to the ‘final girl’ theory seen in genre theory. 
• She is not your ‘usual’ hero, as she also has some elements of the ‘princess’ character who is usually threatened and saved, for example framed in mid-shots and extreme close ups you can see her struggle with the killer. In post-production, flashes of light were added to add to the distress and chaos of the scene, further relaying the ‘victim’ character type. 
• The princess character or victim is usually threatened and saved. The difference in our film is that the princess then becomes the hero, and saves herself. 
• Our villain, however, does conform, as he creates narrative disruption throughout,  he is often seen in the background of shots, e.g. a close of the victims face, with low-key and ambient lighting produced by a lighter, the villain is barely seen with his mask heavily distorted by the light.
• Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages, including the state of equilibrium at the start, the disruption of equilibrium and then the reinstatement of equilibrium at the end.
• We heavily conform to this theory. In our trailer, we start with a happy party environment, with mid and close up shots of alcohol, laughing and talking, as well as up-beat non-diegetic music, indicating a party. The mood changes through the use of typography and sound. 
• The upbeat music ceases and a sinister boom and knock at the door is heard, along with creepy typography with a flickering effect used, reading ‘…who’s there?’. 
• On the other hand, we subvert the theory as we do not reinstate the equilibrium at the end, seen through the last shot of the killer slowly turning his head, at a slightly low angle, adding to the suspense, edited with non-diegetic screams and flashing up typography. 
• We did this because leaving the conclusion as an enigma is an important convention for the trailer form.
• Allan Cameron’s theory claims that modular narratives ‘articulate a sense of time as divisible and subject to manipulation’.
• He identifies four different types of modular narrative: anachronic, forking paths, episodic and split screens.  
• In our trailer we conform to this theory by utilising an episodic structure. This is seen by using different victims throughout the trailer, each being killed separately from another, in their own ‘episode’, e.g. one victim is attacked from behind in a hallway framed in extreme close ups and mid shots. 
• Another victim is framed being dragged along the floor through a door way at an eye level shot to the floor. In post-production, the adding of a repeating set of the same noises, each in time to each clip helps reinforce the ‘episodic’ idea.
• Barthes’ codes claim that narratives are like ‘tangled balls of threads which need unravelling’, some being open with many interpretations and others being closed, with only one possible interpretation. 
• Ours is an example of an open narrative as each character can be interpreted in different ways. For example, the character of the killer could be likeable to the audience or seen as a threat. 
• Our film conforms to the Enigma / Proairetic code set out by Barthes, saying that the way tension is built up leaves the audience guessing what happens next. One key example of this is a scene in wh
  ich a man looks out a window. 
• The camera is outside and we seem him peering out, all of a sudden, a creepy symbol noise is heard as the killer emerges in the background, and then the scene is suddenly blacked out, leaving the audience wondering what happens next. 

Designing the Website

For our website, we used the online builder, wix.com, to make a professional looking film website. We also had to look at inspiration from other existing, real, websites to see what kind of conventional elements we should include but also what twist each website had. One example is the one below, the Texas Chainsaw 3D website. It was highly interactive, when you put your mouse over certain parts they'd move, there was audio from the film, little jumpy sequences playing. It also had standard features such as links to other pages, the trailer, and reviews.

After taking some inspiration from existing websites, we decided to start our own. I thought it would be a good idea to actually design a lot of it on Photoshop and then upload it as a background image on to wix. 

I started with a grainy grey image I found on google, and layered onto it a mask of this black frame which added to the horror feel of the image. I then added blood splats in the corner and center, as well as a drip of blood in the corner. We wanted the blood splat to be in the corner of the embedded video on the website, to make it look like blood was splatting out of it, acting as a kind of border. This was simple enough as it encompassed skills learned from the poster creation a few weeks before. In fact, some of the blood stains are actually the ones used on the poster.

Following this, I added the titles in the exact same way we had them in the poster, white lettering, 'Scream Again' font, blood splats and the 'darken' effect. We used the same font from the trailer for the rest of the typography on the image, e.g. the tag line, the reviews. We arranged the texts in places to leave space for the embedded trailer and the links etc that would be implemented using HTML.

We then realised that our layout was not quite right and so went back and moved the text around in order to come up with this layout: 

On the website builder, we added the media links in the bottom right and a black background to the rest of the screen, which blended with the black border of the image. Next was to use some HTML code to create a marquee effect text box, to display fan tweets and create the links for the other pages. To do this I had to learn some basic code:

The most complicated part of the code I had to do was for the links. Basic HTML wouldn't work the way I wanted it to, so I had to use CSS or cascading style sheets.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<style>

p {

    font-family: "Big caslon", Times, serif;

}

a:link {

    text-decoration: none;

}

a:visited {

    text-decoration: none;

}

a:hover {

    text-decoration: underline;

}

a:active {

    text-decoration: underline;

}

/* unvisited link */

a:link {

    color: #FFffff;

}

/* visited link */

a:visited {

    color: #ffffff;

}

/* mouse over link */

a:hover {

    color: #fF0000;

}

/* selected link */

a:active {

    color: #ff0000;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<p><b><a href="default.asp" target="_blank">HOME</a>

<a href="default.asp" target="_blank">ABOUT</a>

<a href="default.asp" target="_blank">GALLERY</a>

<a href="default.asp" target="_blank">EXPERIENCE</a>

<a href="default.asp" target="_blank">CAST</a>

</b></p>

I could use this code to, firstly, make click through links but also change the font to 'Big caslon', the font we were using throughout our coursework and also make the hover colour red, as seen in this image:

We also used a feature on the website to add an audio button, like in the Texas Chainsaw website. We felt this was a nice touch and added some professionalism to our website.