Research - Being Scared

Before creating our films, we had to list what made people scared to give us idea of what our films should be based around. From this research, we found that people tend to be more scared of things that are realistic and could occur in real life - for example, the dark or loneliness. This also applies to gore in films, as people would be more scared if the wounds were received realistically and looked like they could be real.

Some people also told us that they find films with ghosts and spirits in to be scarier than films with other 'monsters' in. This is because they feel as though ghosts could be real - as there's "not really any proof that they aren't" - and the events in the film could happen to them if they messed with the spirit world. On the other hand, there were people that said they found ghost films to be the least scary as they believe that ghosts aren't real and don't take the plot as seriously. When I asked one person what would make them scared of a ghost in a film, they replied that it would be "if the plot was something that could happen to me in real life, without any clichés such as Ouija boards or old, haunted houses".

We decided to use this research when planning our film by creating a relatable character that is in a 'realistic' storyline (although it is exaggerated for entertainment). We focused on scaring the audience by having the 'antagonist' as an unseen, supernatural being - as we have no budget for this film and wouldn't be able to create a realistic-looking, CGI ghost. The film intentionally starts with a clichéd pentagram or Ouija board to mislead the viewer into thinking that the plot is going to be like other films, and so that the real antagonist isn't suspected. Throughout the film, the main character will also experience some of the most common fears that people have - such as loneliness, the unknown and death.

In The Shadows - Draft Magazine Cover

The design of my magazine cover is based on the 'Total Film' cover I copied earlier in the year. Like with my poster draft, I showed this to people in my class for feedback on what I could add/change. I knew before showing people that I needed to add other film photos and titles to the cover, which is why I made placeholders for them to show that I was planning to add them.

Some people pointed out that, other than 'In The Shadows', everything else was in the same font. Because of this, I am considering changing 'Film Time' to something different, but I am not going to change the other fonts because then it would look unprofessional.

In The Shadows - Draft Film Poster

This is the first poster I was going to hand in as a draft but, when I thought I was finished, it was suggested that I remove some of the trees so that the picture of Holly stands out more.

I then created this poster but I wasn't sure about how it looked, so I saved it as a different file for if I wanted to use the original poster. I created the faded look around the edges of the poster by colouring in the space with an almost-transparent, light grey paintbrush, and then going over it with a darker grey on the same settings. This helped me to blend the colours more and also meant that it didn't matter if it didn't look perfect. I also made the glow around Holly larger to put more focus on her and to also make it fit in with the soft glow around the edges of the poster. If I have time, I might try to redo the glow around the edge to make the black space in the corners smaller. This is because I think there is a bit too much blank space in the poster and I also want more of the trees to be visible.

To get feedback, I showed the second poster to people in my class to see what they said. Generally, people thought that it was effective as a film poster and could be a real poster if they didn't known that I had made it. It was mentioned that there's no idea what the narrative of the story is from looking at the poster, so I am considering adding a pentagram in the background to connote that the film is supernatural. I was also told that I should add a website or hashtag somewhere so that potential viewers would have some way to research the film further or talk about it with their friends.

In The Shadows - Draft Trailer

We received some feedback from our class after showing them this trailer and used it when improving our work. The feedback was:

• Add the production company logo at the beginning.
• Find a way to blend the two songs or change them.
• Lower the volume of the first song.
• Change the first shot to something more effective.
• Edit the fast-paced section to the music.

Film Editing - Changes to Ideas

As mentioned in a previous post, we had an idea of what we wanted to do with the editing of our trailer before we started. Some of these were definite idea - such as editing to the music - and others were ideas of what to add in if we had the time, like adding in animation. Due to none of us having used the editing software before, we weren't sure what it offered and so our initial ideas were based upon other softwares we've used.

We originally wanted silence in the middle of the trailer to put emphasis on the voiceover but had to fade a song over this part to make the two main music tracks of the trailer blend. It sounded better this way because the fast-paced music didn't come in so suddenly and it allowed us to extend the end of the first song. We also decided that the silence wasn't necessary for emphasis as it's not Holly speaking and therefore it makes her voiceovers stand out more.

Initially, we didn't plan on adding the green screen at the beginning or the institutional information at the end but realised while watching other's trailers that it made it seem more professional. I kept the fonts and styles used as similar to what actual film trailers have to make our trailer seem more realistic.

I wanted to animate the title so that the circles moved on one at a time but couldn't find out how to - and couldn't find a way that wouldn't take up too much time - so I changed the transitions to a simple wipe and fade, which had a professional look to it. I also didn't know how to animate the title but when putting the candle being blown out before it, a fade looked more effective when showing the title so we decided to do that.

While figuring out how to make the two main songs blend, we tried adding in a scream at the start of the fast-paced section but it didn't have any effect other than making people jump and cringe (which they didn't like) so we took it out. This also stopped the shots being edited in time to the music and we decided that that would be more effective so we made it the bigger priority.

Film Editing - Music

As the start of the trailer is supposed to seem like a teen angst film, we used an upbeat song - called 'If she's an angel' - by Charlotte Campbell, who is a singer that Lucy knows and who allowed us to use her song. We slowed down the beginning of the song to 80% of its original tempo to give a slightly eerie vibe to the clips being shown. So that the last word wasn't lost in the fade to the next song, we added reverb to it to put emphasis on it. The lyrics of the section of song we used are, "If she's an angel, what am I? If she's an angel, what am I supposed to be?", which connote innocence and a sense of the girl mentioned being 'perfect'- reflecting Michael's views of Holly. The lyrics also emphasise the use of Strauss' theory of polar opposites being in our film.

The second song used in the trailer is called 'Pretty Parties' and was found on FreeplayMusic. We sped the song up to fit the fast pace and we  also reorganised the order of the shots so that the cuts were in time to the beat. I decided to edit the start of the song to the end of the trailer so that it fades into a slower pace when the title appears. There was also a version of it that was slowed down and had less drums so I edited that between the two songs as a transition to make them flow better - as we realised in our feedback that the songs didn't go together well.

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, we used silence at the beginning and end of the trailer to put emphasis on voiceover - with last part being diegetic.

Film Editing - Photoshop

As the most experienced in the group with Photoshop, I was in charge of producing the film title and institutional information for our film. We would have made them on the film editing programme but we didn't want to waste time finding out how to create text on a programme we know very little about. I also suggested using Photoshop because I wanted to put on the production company logo and effects - both of which could not be done without Photoshop.

Making the title was relatively easy as I already had an idea of what it wold look like. I kept to the original idea of 'in the' being a bold, white font and 'shadows' in a slanted font with a shadow behind it. I put a layer mask over 'shadows' so that the first half of the word looked like it was hidden in shadows, which I achieved by putting a gradient from black to white over it and adjusting the opacity until the word was only just visible. I then put a drop-shadow onto the word, which wasn't visible on the black background, and moved it until just the top of the shadow was visible on the 'in the'. I did this to emphasise the idea of darkness and making sure that the top half of the title didn't look out of place by being just plain white.

I used the same technique of a gradient overlay on the 'coming soon' screen shown after the title. this was to fit in with the title and to establish a theme that could be used on other promotional devises - such as posters. I found in my research that this screen usually has a website and/or a hashtag on it, so I added them onto the screen in a different font to make them stand out but not look out of place. I added a soft glow behind them to make them stand out more and to contrast with the idea of darkness. I decided to put in the bright version of our production company logo as it makes it stand out from the monochrome colour scheme and would catch the audience's attention.

For the institutional information, I searched for what other thriller films had used and based ours on what I found. Most of them had the job titles smaller than the names so I copied that format, along with the jobs that were featured on the screen. All of the jobs were done by the three people in my group, but I wanted the screen to look professional so I included others from our class in this screen.

While researching, I noticed that almost every trailer had a green screen at the start stating the age rating of the film. I based our one off of these by using the same font and format as the ones I found, but editing it to fit with our film.

The production logo had already been made so I didn't have to make one while editing. I darkened the colours to fit with the dark genre and to instantly connote to the audience that they are about to watch a horror trailer. There is also a wipe transition used when this screen is shown in the trailer to grab the viewer's attention and to add some movement to the logo - as we don't know how to animate it. This makes the company seem professional and also interests the audience as it's the only transition that isn't a fade or cut.