POSTER - Font and Image choice

Deciding which font to use was quite difficult as we wanted it to incorporate the theme of our trailer which include horror and Christmas. I began my searching various types of scary fonts on 'dafont.com' by using synonyms of horror such as 'sinister' 'haunted' 'paranormal' 'fear' and 'terror'. Once realised that my font needed to involve Christmas a bit more, I began to search 'christmassy' 'icey' etc. Above are the fonts that I thought were the best to use and after discussing it with my group we decided to go for the circled font. We believed it embodied the horror aspect as it was bold yet slender and also the Christmas aspect as ice droplets were forming on it.

On the left are fonts from real media texts in which I got inspiration from. They are all thinner serif fonts with some sort of effect on them, either distortion or cracks or shadows.









After eliminating manner other potential poster images, my group and I came down to the two images below. We found these images the most effective as they en-captured the whole theme of horror and Christmas. We also thought the strong angles and lighting was caught by our Poster photographer (fellow group member) Romara Blake.We deciding between the two photos, we found that it would be better to ask members of our target audience and our teachers. We received quite mixed reviews however majority were leaning towards the bottom left picture due to the fact the lighting is better in terms of in brightness as the other one is 'too light'. The angle was found to be creepier and therefore our chosen horror poster image.

POSTER - Layout/Photoshop

The YouTube video above illustrates the process of creating the horror poster. Our initial idea for the poster was to have the villain knocking at the door with a victim dead on the floor with Christmas lights around her neck, However, after some feedback from teachers, we decided to enlarge the photo a tad hand just have the villain in the shot, we found that this was most effective and engaging. The lettering chosen for our main fonts was manipulated quite a lot by the 'blending options' section in Photoshop, this helped in making it look a lot sinister and horror like. I went with a more conventional layout- this includes black/dark outer corners with a coloured centre image, the use of black, red and white, and the use of the villain/protagonist in the image.
Overall, I believe this poster embodies the theme of horror well and links in with other real media texts well for example:
 

POSTER- Shots Taken/Mise-en-scene

Above are the final shots taken for our horror poster, Our aim was to use a full length, high angle shot with the villain faced towards the camera (to incorporate an angle of gaze) . The camera acted as the door peephole. We wanted to use this as it demonstrates a clear link with our trailer as at the beginning, the characters begin knocking and looking through the peephole.In addition, my group and I decided to use Christmas lights around the neck of the victim on the floor (safely of course) which further added a link with our trailer and the poster as in our poster the victim on the floor with the lights around her neck (me) is also seen in the trailer playing with them. However, what we didn't intend to have in the shot was the car behind and tiles on floor pathway which after some feedback from our teacher was seen as a distraction. Despite this, I believe my group and I cam out with some successful poster photos as they embody the whole theme and vision for our horror trailer.

TRAILER - Exploring Shot Types and Sizes

From 2:02 of this trailer it shows a gathering scene where the characters are in a circle reciting some words for the demons to appear, this became an inspiration for my trailer as we thought it was an effective scene in building up tension and suspense, instead of using it for the demon to appear, we used it to cast away the demon/evil spirit. This was found effective with our peers and teachers. A low level mid length shot was used in en-capturing the mood/tone of the scene as the camera came around our faces in showed the expressions of each of the characters. They way in which my group and I interpreted this scene was just as effective the mise-en-scene within our version included the use of the darkness vs light from the candle (binary oppositions) and the bible = scriptures (Semantic Meaning - Enigma Code) these elements helped intensify our horror theme



This trailer was a perfect muse for the creation of my trailer. It demonstrated the initial equilibrium and the disruption clearly. The shot type that came in handy was the establishing shot of people entering the house. It reflects the type of characters entering the home clearly and establishes the tone.






1:29 of this trailer for a split second, there is a close up shot of a book (possibly the Scriptures), my group and I incorporated a shot of this ourselves which was effective in adding the common convention of religion within our trailer.



At 2:00 in this scene, the young girl gets dragged by a demonic force, this scene is effective in building horror and fright within the audiences due to the fact the girl has no control over her being, my group and I decided to recreate a similar scene where 'Jane' gets dragged away from the camera into the darkness, again binary oppositions has been incorporated in this scene, at 4:26 of our rough cut below, we demonstrate how we en-capture the scene of the victim getting dragged, with a low angles close up. This was effective as the audience can engage with the victim and they are really exposed to the expressions on her face.

TRAILER - Construction linked to Theories and Storyboard

TRAILER - Research into use of music

TRAILER - Use of sound effects

TRAILER - Careful use of Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene that was involved in our trailer definitely aided in pushing our narrative forward. This included things such as: a home as our location, blood, a pretend knife, candles, phone flash light, Christmas decorations and gory make up.
Initially my group and I did not intend on making our horror trailer Christmas themed, as our prior idea was of a gathering at a friends house after their parents have gone away for the weekend. It began to be a horror themed Christmas trailer as we couldn't take the decorations down due to family tradition. We managed to prevent this from becoming an obstacle by incorporating it into our narrative as a sort of "Christmas demon". We used these decorations carefully by trying to incorporate them into as many shots/scenes as possible so that our audiences doesn't forget the theme of our trailer. Overall, I believe my group and I carefully handled the props, lighting and location in order to come out with a successful horror trailer.

TRAILER - Titles and font use

Initially, my aim was to create titles that had a clear link with our poster and magazine cover, therefore, I used the same fonts and colours to highlight the link between the three. These dark and sinister looking titles below were effective in bringing the message across of a haunted Christmas.

However, after some feedback from teachers, we were told that our titles and fonts were too dark and not as a effective as they could be. We were then advised to have a look on iMovie as they have fonts that are effective and add the professionalism that my group and I were looking for.  Below are the final titles that we chose and that were found to have added the creativity and sophistication that we needed.

TRAILER - Evidence of Controlled use of Camera

TRAILER - Rough Cut

Our rough cut above shows all the footage we have so far, creating this rough cut helped my group and I to identify what extra scenes we needed to film in order for our narrative to make sense as at that current stage there was no real link between the scenes. This rough cut also highlights the correct and incorrect use of sound effects (towards the end) as some were not in the right places which restricted a build in tension. After some feedback from students in and out of our class we found that some scenes were actually effective such as the bible scene, the gathering in the circle scene (which links with the title of the film), the beginning equilibrium scene and the last scene where a victim gets dragged into the darkness - we were told that lighting angles and sound was all effective. We also found that a lot of them didn't understand the story-line which was understandable as there were a lot of scenes missing. From this rough cut my group and I were soon able to film a few extra nights to fill in the gaps with vital scenes.

TRAILER - Evidence of Filming Continued...

Evidence of Filming by Slidely Photo Gallery

TRAILER - Inspiration for our horror make up

TRAILER - Evidence of filming: Horror Make up

I have attached a video above that demonstrates the process of our villains make up. We were going for an exaggerated grungy and scary look to really intensify the horror aspect of our film. We found inspiration from several Youtubers such as Glam&Gore, ellimacs sfx makeup and Julietta Elias who focus of making the mouth area as gory as possible. This had a strong link to our narrative as our villain focuses on being a silent and invasive character (creeping up on people, possessing the household etc). I believe that our make up turned out successful as we took time in ensuring that everything came out perfect with little amount of products.