Our horror movie trailer is based on the plague, a deadly disease that has killed many, and a young girl who lsot her life to it and comes back to ruin the lives of unsuspecting school girls, which are the age she was when she died. My role in the production process was filming, acting and directing. During the scenes I wasn't involved in, I filmed a scene from different angles, so when it was edited at a later date, the effect would make the scene more interesting. The different angles I filmed were the extreme long shot, when Farjanas character first spots 'Lisa', the birds eye angle, when Farjanas character is killed, the mid shot, when Sules character has her second encounter with 'Lisa' and when Farjanas character sees 'lisa and coughs up blood and the tracking shot, where my character is cornered by 'Lisa'. I took part in some of the scenes and was one of the victims, which was also a crucial part of the production process as if an actor wasn't performing properly, it could ruin the whole trailer and waste time we didn't have. Some of the scenes were directed by me, and in some i just helped with the the directions. Some scenes such as when 'Lisa'(played by Vesa) is first spotted by the actors, were directed by me, but my actual death was directed by another member of my group, Farjana. I had done a lot of background work in lessons, such as finding films that had a similar plot to ours and horror films in general that used supernatural forces. We also searched information of the actual plague and found the symptoms and what the victims looked like in preparation for the costumes. In addition, we designed a questionnaire which we then took round to be answered by our target market, teenagers aged between 15-17, so we could gain a better idea on what our target market actually want in a horror trailer.
The horror genre has a wide variety of sub-genres within it, such as supernatural, monster/physical killers, slasher and psychological. Each of these subgenres have different conventions. Supernatural horror movies tend to use more ghosts and dead people who haunt or possess a normal human, whereas in a psychological horror movie peoples brains are manipulated by either supernatural forces or other humans. In monster/physical killers horror movies it is usually direct killings using everyday objects such as knives or even guns, with a lot of blood shed and mass murders. We chose to use more conventions from the supernatural genre as it tied in better with our horror movie trailer. A dead persons ghost haunts and possesses a person and kills the others. We decided to use these conventions in our trailer because from our questionnaire results, we realised it was more appealing for our target market to watch horror movies about supernatural beings with murders that didn't just include a lot of blood shed, but had a deeper psychological, if not unearthly reason, behind it. 'The woman in black' was a major inspiration in the production of our trailer. During our research we came across it we realised it had also a psychological reason behind the killings, which was what we wanted to incorporate into our trailer. Although, the film is not directly related to disease, it has deaths of children, which is similar to our trailer which has deaths of teenagers. Also, the killer is a mother that haunts a village and kills the children because her child died at a young age and she doesn't think its fair for other children to live, which is also what 'Lisas' reason is in our trailer, as her life was taken at a young age she doesn't believe that others should live to. Also, there is a scene were little girls are wearing long white dresses. This is where I got the idea for 'Lisas' costume from. The connotations of white is usually purity, however although 'Lisas' dress is white, it is stained with red blood, which has the connotations of death and anger. Before filming we had to do a lot of planning in order to film effectively and use our time efficiently. Along with research, we brainstormed ideas of actual deaths and scenes which could be in the trailer. We didn't want to waste time filming scenes and end up not using them, so we ordered each of our scenes chronologically before hand. Whilst filming we had no problems as we were all able to handle the equipment properly and we already knew what areas and places we were going to film in. All of our filming was done in the area of our school, inside and out of the buildings. When we needed to use places like the theatre we booked a time with the drama teaches to ensure we were able to actually use the theatre at the given time and to avoid any issues, such as the teachers not knowing we were going to be filming and using the theatre for something else, stopping us from filming. Also, we respected the classrooms and people around us whilst filming at lesson time, and in return people inside the school respected our filming and didn't disturb us or affect any of the scenes. We could have improved the way we worked together as a group by being less dominant when it came to one of our ideas and allowing someone else to expand on the idea and by recognising mistakes other group members were making, such as holding the camera wrong or filming from the wrong angle, which would have saved us even more time. Also, as we re did some scenes, we should have planned in advance to make sure hairstyles and clothes were all the same, as we wanted the trailer to be as professional as possible,so we didn't have to waste time planning it for another day. Overall, our group worked brilliantly together as we all got along and didn't have any major arguments or disagreements when it came to the actual work. Also, we all had similar ideas when it came to the trailer so the ideas we came up with weren't so different from one another. We supported each other through every scene and made sure we came after school to finish off any filming or editing, and we used our time effectively and wisely during lesson time to ensure everything was finished and at the highest standard. During editing the only real problems we faced were when another group had used the laptops before us and were finalising their projects, which meant we had to waste time waiting for their projects to finish finalising so we could make a start on ours. Also, we weren't all experienced at using the editing programs at first so a lot of the beginning editing was left to Farjana. However, we all learnt to use the editing program and were able to help her. We already had a rough idea on what sort of sound track we wanted for the trailer from our pre production and research on other trailers. The sound effects we used were thought of whilst actually editing as we had many scenes that had too many background noises, such as the scene where everyone is gathered outside of school. We had to find an appropriate sound to fill in the silence. Also, we recorded our teachers voice to be added to the trailer later on for effect as we weren't only filming her but the whole class and we didn't want any background noises.
In conclusion, i think we have done amazingly in the given time with our horror movie trailer. It is completely finished, which different camera angles, a sound track, sound effects and a recognisable plot with clear conventions. Our group has done very well and we were all able to get through this project with minor difficulties and produce a brilliant piece of work. We could have improved our trailer by having more background information about the plague and the killer so the audience could already have some sort of idea of what the plot line would lead up to. My favourite scene from our trailer is when my character is being cornered by 'Lisa' and my back is faced towards her and she comes closer every second, very suddenly. This is my favourite scene as it shows our skills in editing and creativity, as we had to cut at the right time to get that effect, as well as it shows some of my acting skills. The horror convention we broke was that usually in horror films the first person to realise what is going is the last to die as when they tell people they aren't believed and have to watch the events that occur without being physically effected till the very end. In our trailer Sules character is the first to realise but instead of trying to warn the other characters and stop the events from unfolding, she draws my character to her death and she is effected the worst as death is instant but she loses her mind. Usually a stereotype for girls is that they are the weaker gender, and they need men for everything remotely dangerous or something out of their comfort zone. Our trailer challenges this as the girls don't go running off to boys to check our their fears and make sure there is no ghost or monster. Farjanas character is already away from 'Lisa' when she first spots her but she shows bravery by going back into the building to confirm her suspicions and also uses her initiative which is shown when the flashback of the symptoms are shown. However, our trailer also conforms to some stereotypes, as girls are always shown as too eager and too curious, as my character hears the eery music coming from the theatre and instead of ignoring it and walking away as I did when i first spot 'Lisa' i allow my curiosity to take over and investigate, which inadvertently leads me to my death. The killer was represented as a lost soul as she did kill 2 school girls, but she also needed a friend which is why she kept Sules character alive even though she had become mental. Everyone in their teenage years needs friends for comfort and support, and during the time of the plague she didn't have that but by taking Sules characters sanity away she had gained a friend or an acquaintance. Stripping the killers issues away from her, leaves a school girl that is lonely. Our target audience was teenagers, of both genders, aged between 15-17. This is because that is the age we are now and we believed that we could relate to people our own age rather than people of other age groups. We know what we look for in horror movies, and as peer pressure and band wagon appeal are at their highest during teenage hood, it was easy to pin point what would be most popular with people our age. The main lessons i will take away for any future film making projects are the techniques i learnt whilst helping editing, and the different angles in filming that can be used in many different scenes for different effects.
