Trailer/Short Film Questionnaire

This is our questionnaire which we have producted as primary research. We will hand out 20 questionnaires to people of all ages and then analyse them to see what our target audience want in a short film/ trailer. This will help us decide what our end product will be, such as whether it will be a sjhort film or trailer, and key conventions such as character type and sound effects.
 
Media- Trailer/Short Film Questionnaire

1.      What is your age?

Under 15          16- 23            24- 31           32 and over

2.      What is your gender?

Male          Female

3.      Do you watch short films?

Yes             No                If No, state your reason why…

If Yes, can you state which short films you have watched…

4.      Do you watch trailers?

Yes             No                If No, state your reason why…

5.      Which would you prefer to watch, short films or trailers?

Trailer             Short Film

6.      Which genre of film do you prefer to watch?

Horror/ Thriller           Rom-Com                    Action              Sci-fi

Documentary              Comedy                       Drama             Musical           Other...           

7.      What film certificate do you usually go to watch?

12                    15                    18

8.      How do you find out about new film releases?

Trailer             Poster              Internet          

9.      What is your favourite horror/ thriller film?

Please state below.....

10.  What is it that you like about horror films?

Please state below…

11.  What sort of things do you expect to see when you watch a horror trailers?

You can tick more than one.

Ghosts             Zombies                      Mysterious happenings          

The unexpected          Blood and gore           insane people

12.  What scares you the most in horror thrillers?

Eerie atmosphere                   Sound effects              Unexpected jumps

Other...

13.  What are your preferred sounds in a horror? You can tick than one

Screams                      Eerie music                 Footsteps                     Heavy breathing

Whispering                  other...

14.   How would you imagine a woman to be shown in a horror?

Innocent                      Evil

15.  If you have anymore comments please leave below…

Proposal for my short film/ trailer

In class I wrote my thoughts down for my short film/ trailer. I created a spider diagram of all my ideas to do with titles, characters, storyline, props, music/ sound, sfx and so on.

I have written my ideas down but however, I still don’t know if I should create a short film or trailer because I still haven’t decided I will be doing further investigation into short films and trailers

My ideas for my synopsis are:

Title

·         Never look back

·         Do not enter

Genre

·         Horror/ thriller

Characters

·         17 year old girl, with long hair and pale. The girl will be costumed to wear a plain robe.

·         Two teenage boys

Scene/ Setting

·         Dark night

·         In a forest like place

·         A mill/ abandoned place

Storyline

·         Two boys were playing at an abandoned mill/ house, they think it would be a good idea to go inside and spook each other out. They begin to hear noises and strange things are occurring. They then come across a girl who looks processed by the devil, they run out screaming a she follows and kills them.

OR

·         Two boys and a girl go out to this abandoned place, messing around and spooking each other in the dark, the girl goes missing and they boys go to look for her and she turns on them as she is processed by the devil and they run out screaming , she kills them both

OR

·         The boys are camping in a forest and strange things are happening and they can hear voices and sounds. They go to investigate and the girl kills them both.

Props

·         Torches

·         White gown

·         Candles

·         Tent?

Music/ Sound

·         Eery music

·         Voice over of the narrator

Reseach into current Horror movies

For my research, I wanted to look into a movie in the genre which I am going to do. I looked in the movie, 'the last exorcism' which is new release into the cinema. I looked into the facts and advertisements of the movie. This has helped to for when i have to advertise my film especially but also to look at the different shorts of a horror. It has adapted my ideas for my horror film.



Preparing for film making

Preparing for film making
During the last lesson I looked at the important conventions of film making. I researched into the conventions of narrative.
A simple storyline can be broke down into five different steps, as follows:

1.      Exposition – opening premise setting the scene

2.      Development- built on the situation and moves forward

3.      Complication- an event changes the situation

4.      Climax- comes to a head, a point where everything comes together

5.      Resolution- the ending

I found out from the research I had done that continuity editing is a vital part of editing. It is important when changing angle and cutting to another angle, the positioning of the actor has to be the same and the clothing, props and so on.
For the rules of the genre I have chose, horror, when making a film I need to think about the lighting because low-key, high contrast lighting is a feature of the genre. So are canted camera angles, extreme close-ups and jump cuts.

I looked at the terms of narrative development the old structuralist theories of narrative as formulated by Propp, Barthes,Levi-Straus and Todorov. For example, in a short film you will only have time to follow one or two people in a real depth.

Research Study

For my A2 coursework, I have to choose to whether I would like to create a short film or a film trailer. Therefore before I make my decision I have researched into short movies, movie trailers and also theories which are associated with the coursework I am going do.

I began my research looking at different theorists such as Vladimir Propp and Todorov.

Vladimir Propp analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify the narrative elements. He researched into the characters and functions of a narrative, however I mainly looked into his theory of characters. He concluded that all characters could be resolved into eight simple types in the 100 tales he analyzed. These are the eight character types he created:

1.       The Villian- struggles against the hero

2.       The donor- prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.

3.       The (magical) helper- helps the hero in the quest

4.       The princess or prize

5.       Her father

6.       The dispatcher- character who make the lack known and sends the hero off

7.       Thr hero or victim/ seeker hero- reacts known and sends the hero off

8.       False hero- takes the credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

The second theorist was Todorov, a Russian theorist who suggested that all narratives follow a three part structure. They begin with equilibrium (a balance) where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reaches a resolution when everything is restored.

During my classes I have researched short films, this has helped me think about what I will produce. The short movies which I have looked at, are, Dipper, Gravity and Sold.

I looked in depth into Dipper, as homework I wrote an essay the question being, ‘discuss the techniques used in ‘Dipper’ to create a sense of enigma.  In class , I watched the short film 3 times and made notes on editing, narrative, camera angles and sound/ mise-en-scene, then at home used the information for my essay.

Research on the trailer 'The Omen'

In this lesson I researched into the codes and conventions of trailers, in the genre of horror, in preparation for my advanced production. For part of my coursework at A2, we have to produce a trailer or a short film. I have taken it upon myself to research into trailers as I will have to decide whether I should do a trailer or short movie. I also thought it would be appropriate to research into the horror genre, as this is a genre I am particularly interested in. I specifically looked at the trailers for 'The Shining' and 'The Omen' as they are two different trailers which are associated with the same genre.

In ‘The Omen’ the significant techniques used in this trailer were:

·         At the beginning of the trailer there is a classification which indicates who the movie is appropriate for, this is then followed by the company the movie was produced by, for example ‘20^th century fox’ This is the production company which produced the film.

·         At the opening of the trailer there is an establishing shot which tracks to the boy on the screen, this is significant as it set the scene of the film.

·         The mis-en-scene portrays a simplistic scene, the setting being in a play area, enigma relates to the setting as a play area stereotypically shows happiness which contrasts in this trailer as the play area is portrayed as enigmatic through the use of lighting and sound to create the horror genre.

·         Uniquely, in this trailer there are no cuts or edits used in the trailer

·         The costume is a key signifier, as the outfit is red symbolising danger, eye-catching, this is a connotation of an evil side to the child.

·         Diagetic sound of the swing is enhance d to create a eerie sound giving off a sense of mystery. The composition of sound, parallel sound is used as there are three different sound effects occurring at the same time.

·         The  key sound  continuing throughout the film is the drumming sounds, there is a climax created in the music, at that point the boys head turn to address the audience

·         Lighting enhances the sense of horror in this trailer though the use of key lighting in the background. Through using lighting in the back, it creates a silhouette which mirrors the idea of the unknown. The lighting could also be classed as a signifier of hope as the light could portray a sense of goodness in contrast the darkness.

Code and Conventions of Trailers

In this lesson I researched into the codes and conventions of trailers, in the genre of horror, in preparation for my advanced production. For part of my coursework at A2, we have to produce a trailer or a short film. I have taken it upon myself to research into trailers as I will have to decide whether I should do a trailer or short movie. I also thought it would be appropriate to research into the horror genre, as this is a genre I am particularly interested in. I specifically looked at the trailers for 'The Shining' and 'The Omen' as they are two different trailers which are associated with the same genre.
In ‘The Omen’ the significant techniques used in this trailer were:

·         At the beginning of the trailer there is a classification which indicates who the movie is appropriate for, this is then followed by the company the movie was produced by, for example ‘20^th century fox’ This is the production company which produced the film.

·         At the opening of the trailer there is an establishing shot which tracks to the boy on the screen, this is significant as it set the scene of the film.

·         The mis-en-scene portrays a simplistic scene, the setting being in a play area, enigma relates to the setting as a play area stereotypically shows happiness which contrasts in this trailer as the play area is portrayed as enigmatic through the use of lighting and sound to create the horror genre.

·         Uniquely, in this trailer there are no cuts or edits used in the trailer

·         The costume is a key signifier, as the outfit is red symbolising danger, eye-catching, this is a connotation of an evil side to the child.

·         Diagetic sound of the swing is enhance d to create a eerie sound giving off a sense of mystery. The composition of sound, parallel sound is used as there are three different sound effects occurring at the same time.

·         The  key sound  continuing throughout the film is the drumming sounds, there is a climax created in the music, at that point the boys head turn to address the audience

·         Lighting enhances the sense of horror in this trailer though the use of key lighting in the background. Through using lighting in the back, it creates a silhouette which mirrors the idea of the unknown. The lighting could also be classed as a signifier of hope as the light could portray a sense of goodness in contrast the darkness.

In ‘The Shining’ the significant techniques used in this trailer were:

·         There is just one shot used for this trailer, throughout the

Personally, my favourite trailer would