VESA'S EVALUATION

Evaluation

INTRO:

This is my evaluation regarding my group’s horror trailer. Our trailer is about a girl called Lisa (me), who died of The Plague, many years ago, and students have to learn about this particular subject and this particular girl. It is hinted at the beginning that this certain topic caused trouble before because it was ‘previously banned from the syllabus'. Kim (Sule) is the first to suddenly see Lisa and later on we see that anyone who sees Lisa starts to experience the symptoms of The Plague. The trailer doesn’t exactly say why she’s come back to haunt them but this adds to the suspense as the audience would want to go watch the film to get more answers. However the reason she has come back to haunt everyone is because she isn’t able to ‘Rest in Peace’ and she is constantly being disturbed. Through-out the trailer we see Kim going crazy and we see Sonia (Farjana) dead. Helena (Halana) falls to the floor at the end so it’s unclear what has happened to her which adds to the tension as it’s the fear of the unknown.

BACKGROUND WORK:

Before we started working on out story line we done a lot of background re-search. We watched many trailers to give us ideas and we made notes on them. They can be seen on our blog. We also observed how they used certain techniques such as fading, to swiftly move through the scenes. We then re-searched all the camera techniques we needed to include in our trailer and I made a check-list for my group and researched what each camera technique was. My check-list is posted on this blog. We had many ideas and we listed them all and thought of different plots so we could have a variety of choices. I also explored different themes and conventions of horror films and listed them.

MY ROLE:

I believe that my group worked very well together and we were able to take on many different roles. I was an actress in the production as I was the killer. I was also a make-up artist. In order to fulfil this role, I watched YouTube video’s to inspire my make-up and give me ideas on what make-up I could use to create ‘Lisa’. Halana was mainly the costume designer as she found a suitable dress and because she used her knowledge of textiles, she could alter the dress to fit me, I helped I adding blood to the dress. Also I filmed many scenes for example the bathroom scene with Sule and scenes which I wasn’t included. I also took on the role in directing some scenes as I was already familiar with certain aspects of acting as I do drama and have had some experience. I was involved in the editing a lot as I already had some knowledge from editing on Movie Maker on a computer and iMovie was quite similar. I stayed after school for hours, many times in order to edit our trailer so we would finish on time and I wanted to have it completed to the best of my ability. As I also study music and I previously done music technology. I knew that there would be background noise when we recorded the audio for Ms Debortoli’s voice over. I decided to take the audio home and used software in order to remove any background noise/hiss.

HORROR GENRE & CONVENTIONS:

The horror genre usually is a genre that plays on people’s fears and emotions. There are often scenes which scare the audience because they involve the audience coming to face to face with their fears or nightmares. The horror genre can have many sub genres and it can be linked with different genres, for example, thriller, supernatural, fantasy and physiological. The typical conventions of these subgenres are listed below however there are also others such as: disruption of normality, presence of evil, dark/shadowy lighting and isolation. In our production we decided to use the use of dark lighting when Halana was in the theatre and this caused a lot of suspense because darkness is often associated with evil and because it’s dark you can’t see what’s going on properly and this plays on the fear of the unknown. We also had the killer who was supernatural.

CHARACTERS: Killer, victims, hero(protagonist), family, friends, priest, doctor, infected people, crazy people, possessed people, problem solver, ghost, supernatural being.

PROPS: Knives, phones, cross, holy water, toys, ropes, chairs, gloves, blood.

INFLUENCES:

We were influenced greatly from Women in Black and the costume ideas came from The Ring. We really liked the two shots from Woman in Black because the audience can see the killer but the victim can’t and we have more knowledge and this creates dramatic irony.

Apart from being influenced on camera shots and costumes, I was also influenced by the philosopher Todorov, he believed in structuralism. I liked the fact that the situation is first presented and we used this when Sule first starts to see the dots on her hand. And as the trailer progresses the tension rises until it reaches the climax of Halana falling to the floor. This would interest an audience because they would be keen to know how the tension falls or how the problem gets sorted out. Below is a diagram I created.

PRE-PRODUCTION:

I helped my group design a questionnaire to ask our peers,(which were our target audience) what  they preferred  in a horror film. Our trailer would be rated 15 and above. I also helped create a target audience profile (which can be seen on the blog). After we gathered our results, we brainstormed ideas and came up with a plot. Psychological and supernatural genres were the most favoured, so we decided to mix the two together. We decided to set it in a school because that was the most popular choice. This was also convenient because it meant that we could film during our lessons and our time wouldn't be compromised. Also, there are not many horror films that are based in school and we thought this would also be effective because our audience could relate to it because they go to school everyday. After we decided our setting, we went around our school taking photos of areas that we wanted to film and include in our trailer. We then organised who was going to get the make-up and costume. We decided we wanted to have a white dress, similarly to the dress that Samara wears from ‘The Ring’. We found this particularly effective because it would give a ghostly touch and the white dress this connotes innocence, which is seen in children. The innocence makes it interesting because someone wouldn’t expect something innocent to harm anyone so the audience is constantly in fear as they don’t know what to expect. We then started to plan the trailer, at first we just listed what we wanted to definitely include in our trailer and then we structured it. This helped a lot because we knew what we were doing and instead of filming straight away and filming random scenes we spent our time in the classroom planning it to the last detail, this benefited us greatly as the filming was mostly completed after school in one day.

PRODUCTION (FILMING,EDITING&MUSIC):

The production went very smoothly due to all the planning. One day after school, I put all my make-up on and my costume and we filmed all the scenes that involved me as Lisa so that meant I wouldn't have to put make-up on again. Once we got that out the way we focused on our other scenes. We had my check-list whilst we were filming at all times and that inspired us to try different angles while filming certain scenes. We then recorded classroom scenes at the beginning of our normal class when we had everyone there and we used advantage of this. Me and Halana also left class a bit earlier so we could catch everyone leaving school for our opening scene. Also, sometimes when we felt that we needed an extra scene, we would film and add it afterwards.

I stayed after school on all the days that we allocated to stay after school to edit because I really enjoyed the process. I always had another group member giving advice and opinion and also helping to edit. This was very helpful as we got more work done and at a faster rate. We experimented on using different effects, for example when Farjana was squinting in a scene, we got a shot of a view from her eyes and we added an effect which made the corners of the shot black. This was effective because it looks like the shape of an eye squinting. We also included a lot of fading for transitions to make the change of scenes smoother. At the end we added a special effect when Halana falls down which makes it dramatic as it’s in slow motion and there’s more time for the audience to think and ask questions and this makes them more curious. An example of techniques I used whilst editing included:

·         Cut

·         Transition

·         Trimming

·         Adding audio

·         Adjusting /Layering sound

·         Adding special effects

Adding music and sound effects was very tricky as we had to find the perfect sound to fit our trailer. We all believed that sound and music made a massive impact. For example in “Jaws” there is a certain theme tune when the shark is coming and it’s very recognisable. This certain theme tune made a huge impact because the audience weren’t aware of anything but the music suggested something was there, or something bad was going to happen. We all took turns searching for music and then listening to what certain times we needed. We then cut the sound/music at these points to fit our trailer. We always asked each other whether we thought the music was effective and we didn’t put anything in our trailer that someone was unhappy with. Our sound was mostly non-diegetic (soundtrack based). For example most of the scenes have music layered on top of it. However there were diegetic aspects for example when Halana hears the music and also when fudge is walking you can hear the background noise of her walking and her footsteps. Our music has a lot of crescendo which builds up the anxiety.

MY GROUP& POSTPRODUCTION:

I think my group was amazing because we all worked well together in order to successfully and efficiently complete the trailer. We were so organised and all the planning we done before hand paid off as we didn’t run into any trouble during the filming process.  We already sorted out what we needed and got permission to film in certain places beforehand. For example we asked we asked for permission to film in the theatre a couple days before we filmed. We were praised on this by the drama teachers because we were so organised that we didn’t just turn up on the day and trouble the staff. Also, I believe that we were very committed because we stayed after school to film and edit on numerous occasions and we gave up our time  just so we didn’t run out of time in class or feel rushed. Because of all this extra time and effort put into our trailer,it felt extra special  because of the cared put into our work.

One problem that we overcame was the equipment. We didn’t have a tripod and this made it a bit difficult because it didn’t look professional. However we tried holding the camera as still as possible and to take the focus away from the camera not being perfectly still, we carefully edited our trailer and used many different shots. Another problem we faced was when we transferred the video’s of all my scenes onto the laptop. Some of the videos didn’t come out the right way round and we couldn’t re-film the scenes with me in them because that meant I would have to put on  make-up on again and that was not possible. However we overcame this and decided to just flip the video around and it didn’t look that bad and we  re-done any other scenes that didn’t have me in it. However this was beneficial because when we filmed after this incident, we made sure that we didn’t repeat our mistakes.

CONCLUSION

I think our trailer ended up being really good because we incorporated many different shots and we thought about the effects it had in detail.We as a group worked really well together as there was never a person who refused to do work, instead, everyone was always willing to help and participate. I liked the scene in which Sule sees me in the toilet because the music fits perfectly with her movements. I like this part because it’s the part where the tension starts to rise and that makes me feel excited. Also, I really like the scene where Halana starts hearing the music and when she opens the theatre door and the music is loud because it’s coming from the theatre.  I like this part because it looks like she’s the only one hearing things and everyone else can’t hear it. You can hear other people in the background talking as if everything is fine and they don’t notice anything but only she does and she has that intense look on her face. I also like the scenes in which Farjana edited together to make it look like I’m in every corner of the theatre while Halana is spinning around as it looks very professional and creepy as it show there’s no escape.

We broke a couple conventions by showing that girls are capable of figuring things out because usually in horror movies the girls shown as useless people who always need to be saved because the men are the people who are strong and protect the vulnerable girls. This can be seen when Farjana has the flashback. However with our trailer, we showed that a group of girls could figure things out and even though they end up dying they don’t die by running away or not fighting, they tried to find out what was happening and tried to help each other.

However we did show the stereotypical teenage group which consists of being naive and a sterotypcial girl who cant control her emotions. For example Farjana returns to school after seeing something even though it might be dangerous and Sule ends up going crazy.

The killer is represented in a very mysterious way as throughout the trailer the killer doesn’t say anything or make a sound. The viewer may be scared of this character however they might also feel sorry for them because they learn that she did suffer and she is still technically young. She didn’t get to experience life and died unjustly.

We all worked on a Target audience profile that has been published on our blog however I will repeat that we listened to our target audience re-search and built on it. This proved to be successful because we ended making a unique storyline which still incorporated our peer’s views on what they would like and the feedback we got from them was great and they really enjoyed it and actually felt scared. And this was an achievement because our trailer wasn’t professional however it was able to grasp the main emotions felt during a horror movie.

I have definitely finished this project with knowledge of how to use a Mac Laptop properly and software such as iMovie- which will come in very useful for me as I want to study media in sixth form and university and having prior knowledge of how to use these types of equipment will help me greatly. I also plan to edit a short music video during my holiday and this has definitely inspired me to be more creative in the shots I use. Also, I really value the importance of planning more as it has helped me a great deal in keeping track of what I was doing and overall I felt as if I ( along with my group) was in control of my project and it wasn't the project taking over me and stressing me out. I also learnt about the many different  horror conventions and I can’t help but think about them when I’m watching a movie, which is new for me as I learn to understand why the movie is a certain way as well as the movie still entertaining me.

Farjana Huda - Evaluation

Our Trailer:

Cast:

Killer: Lisa (Vesa)

Protagonist: Kim (Sule)

Friend: Sonia (Me)

Friend: Helena (Halana)

My roles in the production process:

-Actress

-Make-up artist

-Camera woman

-Editor

-Director

We decided to make our trailer a psychological/supernatural horror film. All of our filming is going to be done in school which means we need to create a narrative that revolves around school-life and children. We decided to choose the school as our primary location because our research told us that our target audience thought that graveyards and haunted houses were an overused and outdated setting. Bringing horror to school will be a fresh, new take on things. This was one generic convention which we broke. Our killer can be a child/student as our research taught us that the most successful psychological horror films such as The Grudge, The Ring and Orphan etc. all contain children that turn out to be the psychotic killers that are taken over by evil due to an unfortunate event that happened in their past.

We began by mind-mapping ideas about what we found scary as our target audience are students in our age range (15-18). After conducting some research we realised that our target audience preferred horror films that were based around a clever concept as it ‘allowed them to think’. We came up with a questionnaire for our target audience by randomly selecting a few people and asking them for their opinion. Once all the results were collected we began to think of more ideas. Shortly after this, I mentioned the old nursery rhyme‘Ring-a-ring o’ roses’ and we then realised that this was associated with the plague. After doing some research about the context of the song, we came up with a detailed narrative. After receiving positive feedback, we began to think about where the best locations are in school to film, generic conventions we would add to our trailer and any costumes and props that we would need.

Lisa’s costume was inspired by Samara’s costume from The Ring and her make-up was inspired by The Woman in Black. Pale faces and white gowns are generic conventions for psychological horror films. We did this in the hope that our target audience would be able to pick up on this and therefore relate to our trailer more.

Evaluation of Filming:

When it came to filming our trailer, we decided to split our time into sections and create a schedule. This way we made use of our time in the most efficient way possible as we filmed each scene and then had time to evaluate the footage and see if we needed to re-film. I think my group worked extremely well when filming as we didn’t come across any major obstacles and any minor problems that did occur were solved within minutes. For exmaple, some parts of the school were not available when we needed to film so we organised a time after school and filmed our scenes then. Moreover, as we filmed on different days, we tried to make our costume, hair and make-up as similar as possible each time to make our trailer look more prefessional.

The type of camera angles and movements that are used are important when making a horror trailer. We followed many of the generic conventions of horror movies that directors use when filming. For example we filmed various extreme close-ups of both the killer’s and the victim’s eyes; we filmed low angle shots to symbolise who was in power; long shots were filmed to show the audience the dull, eerie and isolated settings and also a point of view shot so the audience can experience the same fear the character experienced by seeing it through their eyes.

When filming we could've improved our scenes by filming during the dark. This would have made

our scenes more effective because in horror films the night/dark is usually associated with evil/fear-filming during the night is a generic convention. We could’ve also filmed the same scene but from different angles to give us more of a variety of shots to choose from when editing.

Editing and Post Production:

When it came to editing, the first thing we did was put our clips in chronological order to have an overview of the narrative. From there we took out certain clips and also realised we needed one or two filler scenes to complete the trailer.

I used a range of techniques when editing:

-Trimming the Clip to get rid of unwanted sections

-Increasing/muting the audio on the clips

-Adding effects to the clips

-Adding fades and other transitions

-Including some text toward the end

-Cutting various clips to make them blend in to one scene

-Downloading clips of numerous sound effects and then isolating each one so we could apply it to different parts of the trailer

There were a few problems that I encountered when editing. Some of the footage that had been uploaded was portrait as opposed to landscape which meant that certain clips fitted in to a different frame. This was due to the camera being turned when filming. In one scene where the camera is panning across our classroom, the camera woman's thumb can be seen. This makes our trailer look unprofessional. Unfortunately this clip couldn't be re-filmed due to noticing it too late and also because it was difficult to schedule a time when our whole class was free.

Sound:
 

We did a lot of research to find suitable sound effects and soundtracks (non-diegetic sounds) for our trailer. Some scenes didn’t require a soundtrack because we used the diegetic sound – e.g. when Helena enters the theatre because she hears the ‘Ring-a-ring o’ rosie’ music. We researched many trailers and listened to the way they used sound effects to enhance their trailers and once we found the perfect SFX we downloaded them and applied them to our scenes. The soundtracks were harder to find as we couldn’t find one which fitted our trailer. To solve this problem we found a clip which contains various soundtracks and effects and isolated each one. I also layered many of the sounds to make it sound stronger and more powerful.

Representation of Social Groups:

The group of friends in the trailer are just normal, everyday teenagers that do not enjoy being in school. This was a typical social group which is why it so easy for our trailer to have that emotional appeal. Moreover, the killer was described as a normal, teenage girl that happened to have an unfortunate death. This piece of information attracts the reader because they become eager to know what drove her to kill. Another generic convention that we used was that our characters were similar to the ones we see in horror films. The friend that figures out what is happening ends up being killed and the other friend that tries to help the protagonist also ends up in the middle of it all. However we did break one of the generic conventions. Instead of the protagonist becoming a hero she becomes psychotic and joins the killer. This twist is hinted towards the end of the trailer and this draws the audience in.

Favourite Sequence:
 

In addition, my favourite sequence from our trailer is towards the end where there is a POV shot and the camera is spinning around the theatre. I edited this scene to make it look like Lisa was appearing multiple times in each corner of the theatre by cutting the clips. This shot was shortly followed by a series of mid-shots of Lisa coming closer and closer to Helena. Again I used the quick cutting technique (which is another generic convention) along with inserting some blank transitions in between each clip to increase the pace of the trailer. Once the sound effects and soundtrack were added, it made these scenes very entertaining to watch as it would make our audience jump. Furthermore, this is my favourite sequence because dramatic irony is created. The audience can see that Helena is in danger but she is oblivious to this. It makes the audience even more fearful because they do not want the innocent girl to become a victim as she is so close to figuring out what's going on.

Conclusion:

Overall I think my group has done extremely well as we have created a successful horror trailer that our target audience will find scary and thrilling. If I could improve one aspect of the trailer it would be to blend the soundtracks together or to find one that would constantly play throughout. This is because at times it’s evident that the soundtracks don’t necessarily fit because the transitions between them aren’t smooth. Other than this, I truly believe that our trailer will definitely appeal to our target audience due to the characters being in the same age range as our audience so therefore they’re easy to relate to as the narrative links to school life and the education system. Our trailer has both an emotional appeal and a bandwagon appeal due to having a teenage influence. Once a new craze begins, our target audience will be the first to join and make it their own. This is why I believe that our trailer is a success. I have learnt a lot of skills such as how to use iMovie, how to film from different angles and also how to work effectively in a team. I can apply these valuable skills to other film-making projects that I may do in the future.

Target Audience.

We decided our target audience would be in our age range, which is 15+. However we would try to  specifically target 15-17 year olds as this is year 11 to 13. We as a group decided on this because we believed we could relate to them on some level and put in our opinions as both teenagers and film producers and achieve an emotional appeal with the audience. Horror is a unisex genre therefore we decided on appealing to both genders. A typical female teenager between the ages of 15-17 are stereotypically known to be into gossip, TV, music and social networks.Whereas the 15-17 year old males are mostly into video games and TV. Therefore this information made our advertising locations easier to pick out. This age group is the age where teenagers are beginning to appreciate horror. This is due to the fact that most successful horror movies have a age restriction of 15+. By making our age group young we have guaranteed that they will be travelling a lot, it may mean going out or going to some sort of education based place on a daily bases. This is a positive factor for any person wanting to advertise their work or movie in our case. Putting posters on buses or bus stops can increase the chance of a teenager seeing it. Word travels really fast in the teenage community so if one person hears about something they like it is very likely that the friends do too. The need to fit in is a very urging feeling while growing up. Our target audience prefer the sub-genre psychological horror, this is because they enjoy the puzzles that come with it,showing that they like to use their intellect's while watching things.

Pre-Production Research

Questionnaire

Sample size: 20

Female: 10

Male: 10

Age range: 15+

1.       Which sub-genre of horror do you prefer?

                                                               

Psychological	Slasher	Zombie	Monster	Comedy	other
9	5	3	1	2	0

 

2.       What settings do you prefer in horror films?

 

Haunted House	School	Graveyard	Other
4	7	6	3

 

3.       What is your preferred costume?

 

Mask	Clowns	White gown	Other
6	4	8	2

 

4.       What is your preferred weapon of choice?

 

Gun	Chainsaw	Supernatural	Knife	Other
1	6	9	4	0

 

As you can see, we took in to account all the feedback we received from our target audience. Our sub-genre is psychological horror because our audience told us they preferred horror films which contained a hidden message. We also decided to film in school as the majority of them believed that filming in graveyards or haunted houses etc. was an overrated concept. They also told us that the white gown gave the killer a 'mental and derranged' look. In addition they also told us that supernatural powers are the best weapon because it gives the film a sense of mystery.

Sule Gunes - Evaluation.

Our horror trailer ‘The Plague’ is about a disease that has caused the death of many innocents in the past, which returns to a local school infecting few schoolgirls, along with the ghost of a schoolgirl seeking revenge for the death she didn’t deserve.

In the creating of the production I played several roles, some including camera work in scenes one being the birds eye view of one character dead on the floor, this shot helped create a dramatic and scary effect. I had to ensure that my group was always on task and fully equipped. When I wasn’t in the scene acting, I was directing and filming. I used a wide of camera angles this was supported by a checklist of camera angles that my group came up with. Using different angles gave each scene its own twist; it conveyed different emotions and status. The camera angles we used were included; Extreme long shot, long shot, mid shot, close up, extreme close up, birds eye angle, high angle, eye-level angle, low angle, dutch angle, tracking shot, panning and a evangelion shot. The high angle shot can make the subject look small or weak or vulnerable while a low-angle shot is taken from below the subject and has the power to make the subject look powerful or threatening. The extreme close up shot, which has one body part usually, was my eyes in our trailer. While directing I took on aboard everyone’s views and put the surroundings into prospective and thought about what may make the horror trailer more effective. I positioned the actors in a manner that would make the trailer a success and help the actor express their character better. As an actor I had the role of a schoolgirl who saw the ghost of Lisa whom died of the ‘The plaque’ and is back to seek revenge for her death by giving the symptoms of the plague to those who set eyes on her. Being an actor I had to convey a lot of emotion and help make the act believable. Lastly I contributed in the editing of the trailer and help finding, picking and putting in the sound effects. All the roles I played in this production were important and crucial to it becoming a success.

The lessons at school were used for the planning, research and filming of the scenes for our trailer.

Horror films often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears and terror of the unknown. Horror film is a genre that aims to create a sense of fear, panic, alarm, and dread for the audience. Horror films usually center on the arrival of an evil force, person, or event. Many Horror films include mythical creatures such as ghosts, vampires, and zombies. The horror genre includes a wide variety of sub-genres within it such as, Monster-Horror; a Monster film is sub-genre of Horror that centers on a struggle between human beings and a monsters. Often, the monster in the film has been created in an ‘experiment gone wrong.’ The monster usually serves as a villain, and the film portrays a hero or heroine that ultimately saves the world from the monster. Slasher; slasher is a Horror film that revolves around a psychopathic killer. This killer stalks and murders his victims in extremely violent and memorable ways.

Zombie-Horror; Zombie film is a sub-genre of Horror film that portrays mindless human beings who are raised from the dead. These films often include a Zombie invasion, and center around Zombies feasting on human flesh. Psychological, (surreal) this subgenre is usually written from a tight viewpoint. Is the protagonist really seeing terrible things, perhaps battling against demonic possession. The subgenre that we choose was supernatural. These stories focus on various types of monster from the ‘beyond’ and are back to ruin the lives of a suffering humanity. Ending up in some characters going mad and most dying. Conventions we used in our horror trailers were: blood, isolated settings, evil, screams, darkness, ghost, deaths, and disease. The movie ‘Woman in black’inspired us because it uses a supernatural killer. Also it explores the theme of revenge, which is relevant to our trailer as the killer ‘Lisa’ seeks revenge for having her life taken away at such a young age, whereas teenagers today carry on living with their lives. Another similar aspect is that the woman in black only takes lives when she is seen which is how the deaths of our characters occur when they see ‘Lisa.’ Before we started filming as a group we decided to make a blog in which we all could take turns and contribute ideas to about the production. We believed getting our ideas done before we film would help us get a good idea about what we had to do and what our plot and everything was about. We decided on costume, camera angles, plot and location before we started any filming. I believe my group overcame any problems and difficulties by discussing it and agreeing on a solution that was fine with everyone. During editing we learnt really quickly about the effects and what would go well to make it scary. The only problems were the fact we had to share the laptop with another group and their work went on to save during our lesson times making us lose some editing time but we overcame this by coming after school. Time was a big problem. With music, my whole group took turns in listening to the music that each of us found as we thought it was suitable and decided on the ones that were appropriate. We picked out the times and scenes that they should be put on, same with the sound effects.

Overall, I believe my group worked really well together, we overcame any problems by discussing it and wasn’t afraid to speak out if we wasn’t happy with the decisions that were made. We solved them by discussing it and finding new solutions that everyone was on board with. My favourite scene in this trailer is the quick cut shots of Halana standing in the dark theatre facing away from the ghost figure of Vesa (Lisa) whom is behind her but every scene where it is cut she comes closer to Halana and on the 3rd scene she is right behind Halana. This scene makes the viewer jumpy and gives it the horror atmosphere to the trailer. Also Vesa’s make up makes it scarier and suits the situation. We showed the 3 victims as friends and typical teenagers, also we showed other students walking around to a show typical school in our trailer and we showed the killer to be alone and emotionless in every scene.The skills I earnt from this project are how to use imovie on the mac, which i can use later on in life. Also I m planning on carrying on with Media for A-levels.

Halana Abdul - Evaluation.

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.

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