A2 trailer compared to AS opening two minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfdxL20I4JI

 

Opening Two Minutes

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/1oFGHvd7NMo"

 

Trailer

 

These are the two outcomes that I have made over the course of two years, and there is changes that I have made and improved which show similarities but have been made to a better standard and context. Both my opening two minutes and my trailer are horror themed, which means that easy comparisons can be made and how I have broadened my experimentation in filming.

 

The titles that I used for my opening two minutes compared to last year were more relative to the horror genre, the year beforehand I underlined the title which didn't look as effective as if I had left it plain like this year. I had also found that making the title fit the whole screen seemed to be ineffective because it smothered the viewer to look as opposed to a smaller title which was placed directly in the middle like I did this year, this was effective because the audience then focus more easily and it appears more realistic to the horror genre. What I kept the same between the two was the colours that are the same for the horror genre, white titles on black to leave them unemotional and distant. The fonts were also bold and plain which is similar to most other titles in horror posters, opening two minutes and trailers that I have analysed over the two years.

 



The shots were more varied in my opening two minutes but not as effective as this years, the shots were too wide last year so there was no connection with the character. For the trailer, sometimes we didn't want the connection to the characters but it was relevant to the plot. This was unintentional in my opening two minutes, and it didn't have the desired effect I wanted. Working with a number of different actors this year was effective because then the sole focus wasn't on this one character, making it feel more mysterious to the viewer and leaving them further on edge because you couldn't see the surroundings.

I had used the same setting this year as I had last year, this was useful to me because I understood what effects I could create in the area and how I could use them to my advantage. For the trailer this was created in the snow instead, which added literally a cold effect to the environment the characters were within. We used close up shots of the snow to show footprints that made our audience feel as if the killer was on the loose, something I couldn't do in the weather conditions for my opening two minutes. Also compared to last years, this was all filmed in the fields, because the audience couldn't tell the different between some shots in one area to another, the camera didn't pan far enough out to see.

 

Sound has dramatically improved compared to last year. For the opening two minutes I had recorded the wind from outside and put this on a loop throughout the trailer because I didn't understand how to use the sound system. Working with a partner this year was helpful because I was able to get an understanding of the knowledge Jasmine knew and work into music to complete the overall effect of our trailer, using different music for certain paced areas of our trailer. Once I understood how to use it, I dragged the music over each other so you could hear no glitches to when one tune finished and another started. Out of all the improvements I have made compared to last year, this was definitely the most important.

We used a website called http://freeplaymusic.com/ to get non copyrighted music that we could use for our trailer, all of the songs that we though would be most effective we included in a spider diagram used on Mindjet. Out of all of these different music choices we included three for the different paces, saving the music into my documents so that they could be opened on Adobe Premier Elements 10.

 

I included an institution title that I hadn't included at all last year, which made this more effective to be believable to our audience. I had done this by saving the institution video to my documents off YouTube so that it could then be included at the beginning. I didn't understand how to do this last year, but over the A2 project I have learnt how to do this well and therefore my final outcome had been more professional.

 

Overall I think that working with a partner helped me to be able to understand new websites and technology with music and websites, but my knowledge of the area helped me to understand what shots would make this most effective. I have improved massively since last year and it is clearly seen through the elements above.

Evaluation Activity 3 - Audiance Feedback

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoW4_3Z36W8

 

This was the audiance feedback we recieved for our trailer from the rest of the students in our class, this proved useful because it enabled us to get an insight into what it was that the audiance found most interesting and what could be improved to make our trailer better suited for the genre and create the atmosphere we wanted to create. Our target audiance was of the same age group as the people who analysed (18+), this was beneficial to us because we could get an honest view of what they thought our trailer was like and how it could be improved. They gave positives and negatives which would be taken into account and could be improved further in our trailer, thus making it more interesting to our target audiance.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujRSWzsWVro 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZYqz1Vz85Y 

 

- These are the feedbacks which we gave for the other groups for thier trailers so we could get an audiance feedback for ourselves. It proved useful because we could get a further understanding of how we could improve our trailer and the elements within it, whilst comparing to other trailers enabled us to see what we could improve and what we should keep the same in order to make our trailer the highest quality.

 

The questions that were asked were answered in our video for our auidnace feedback (top), and are summed up below:

 

1) Have they adhered to the conventions of the genre?

 

This question was asking our audiance whether this trailer adhered to the conventions of a typical horror trailer. Our audiances replied that this does, because of the use of editing and a number of different camera shots which shows a number of deaths from killers and people running around similar to most horror films. This is what we were hoping to achieve in our film, and to see that this has been recognised by our audiance shows that this has been successful.
The point that was recognised most successfully was the way we used the blood on the knife to show that our characters neck had been slit. It was commented that it was very effective at indicating the horror genre and it stays with the audiance until the end. By knowing this we could have shown more of the blood and gore within our trailer to make it more effective to our audiances, using different shots to capture the violence that the audiance want to see more of.
Overall i think the genre had been indicated well to our audiance. We found that the characters set the overall mood of the genre by what our audiance had picked out, running and screaming and gore was the main indications which couldn't be recognised without these elements. This shows how our choice of character and age group completed the overall mood, connecting our chosen audiance age group to our characters. 

 

2) What did you think was effective about camera composition and what could have been improved on?

 

 Our audiance recognised how camera shots had been used to highlight most of the gore and characters within our trailer, which they thought was good because of violence which we were trying to show. I think that to improve these shots we shoulod have taken a number of other shots with a difference, they way the knife was slashed or how it stood out on the camera. I think that this would have improved our trailer because we had to use the same shots multiple times to achieve the fast paced movements we wanted to create.
A comment that was made by our audiances to improve our trailer was the amount of camera shots which could have been used. This was a good indication to spot because i think that we overused the close up shots and other angles may have made our trailer more interesting to watch. This would have been good for shots such as the knife slash. If filmed from a lower angle, this would have appeared more threatening to the audiance as they would be seen as an inferior person to the character who is killing. If there could be improvements, it would be this that we would take into consideration.
 

 

3) What do you think was effective about the editing and use of titles and what could have been improved on?

 

 Our audiance commented that the use of editing was effective because it made it appear dark and mysterious, what we were hoping to achieve. We had the idea of using dull colours such as blacks, greys and whites to show the lack of emotion and darkness in the killings. The fact that our audiance was able to recognise this as the reason how the trailer was atmospheric shows that we used our editing processes on Adobe Premier Elements 10 effectively. It was also commented that these effects worked well because of the amount of different camera shots which cut back and forth from running to killing. This could have been experimented more in terms of organisation and effectiveness but our audiance says that it works well, this must mean that the indiation of seperate scenes wasn't misinterpreted with our clips.
Our titles continued to make our clip more atmopheric to the audiance, using sentences such as 'Your never alone' made them feel on edge and eager to know what happens next. This shows that our development from our storyboards and animatics had payed off in achieveing the atmosphere we wanted to create, and it made appropriate gaps between one piece of action to another.

 

4) What do you think about the narrative structure of the trailer?

 

 The audiance say that they can clearly see that it was a bunch of people on the loose that the killer is trying to get to, which again conforms to the horror genre. Because it is a trailer, we don't understand at this point why they are going after them, this leaves the audiance on edge and wanting to know further what happens in the actual film. But they can also clearly see that they all eventually die, which leaves them questioning why is this happening and what is going to happen at the end of the film?

 

5) Do you think that this trailer was conventional?

 

 The audiance respond that this trailer is conventional because of the choice of institution that we used at the very beginning, twisted pictures, only used in horror films. If an institution such as Universal had been used the indication of horror may not have been fully recognised, which is why our audiance immediatly understand what they are going to be witnessing.
They also recognised that our choice of music helps the pace of our trailer take place, starting slowly then rising upwards only to get slower again. We wanted this in our trailer because we thought that it would leave the audiance tense as to what was going to happen next, slowing down when the dead body is seen once and for all at the end.
The titles such as 'Death' make this conventional as well because that is all you think about in a horror genre, by following this cliche the audiance know that they are going to see the gore they want to see.

 

Overall the trailer has been well recieved with only few changes that need to be made to make this to a higher quality. It fulfilled the conventions of a typical horror genre, but the main consideration if our trailer was to be improved was that the variety of camera shots was minimal. To further improve our trailer, this would need to have been included.

Evaluation Targets

Well done Kellie - excellent work so far. To be aiming towards a high band three or even band four you need to be much more analytical. Explain what you actaully did in the editing process using some technical terminology. You need to include some audience feedback and also a director's commentary. Revisit your screen grabs and try to analyse the mise-en-scene and your use of camera shots and angles. Explore exactly how your three pieces compliment each other. Well done.