Proposal pitch for our promotional trailer product

The following is screen-shots of a presentation of our main ideas as to what include in the trailer product.

Primary Research - Questionnaire

The following is the questionnaire we carried out to ask our target audience for some feedback on what kind of horror trailer they would be more interested in watching. This helped us to gain all advice to make a better product for our target viewers. 

 (Some of the feedback has been displayed in graphs thus it is is a easy to read format rather tna having to show many pages of responses.)

 

The first two questions were included in the questionnaire to discover who was

responding. The target audience of our product is all genders, aged 16-30, so it

was this group of people whose responses were most important. However, we handed

the questionnaires to a variety of people to get a fair amount of feedback as we

hoped our product would appeal to people outside of the target audience also.

 

We included the question 'what of the following horror sub genres do you

prefer?'. We found in research that a lot of horror films cross over in the

genre. The aim of this question was too find out the most poplar sub genres,

thus so we knew we would not be making something that is totally unappealing to

an audience.

 

The follow up question was to collect some qualitative data as we asked why in

regards to the sub genres audience members preferred.  One respondent said they

like supernatural horror, as there is a more sense of realism to it than the

other films. It was also preferred by some people because there it is the

unknown, the surprises scare the characters and shock the audience. Some

respondents commented that because the character can't do anything to fight back

intrigues them to the film. Monster horror was voted some people's favorites

because there was a element of creativity to it in regards to designing the

monster, and the storyline is often the most interesting because of the

background of the monster. Zombie horror had a similar comment as to monster

horror as to why it appealed people. The thought of the dead comic back to life

was interesting to one respondent. For the respondents who said they enjoyed

comedy horror the best, the reason generally was because they weren't too keen

on horror films and the comedy element reduced their fear and tended to make it

funnier rather than scary for them.

Because of the limited time on the project we avoided creating a monster horror

trailer, because creating a worthy monster would prove too much of a challenge.

We could have filmed a trailer without using a monster except we didn't think

audiences would grasp the concept of a monster horror without an actual monster

featured. This is also the reason we avoided creating zombie horror. We weren't

too sure how to create a comedy horror as we brainstormed original ideas so

decided against this sub genre route. As a group we found the supernatural sub

genre horror to be most appealing and felt that it had the most potential for us

to be successful. Other planning and research supported this thought and

indicated the supernatural sub genre horror gave the best opportunity for us to

inject tear into the audience within our trailer through a combination of

features.

The fifth question asked 'how often do you go to the cinema?'. We specifically

asked this because the cinema would play an important role in the promotion of

our product and is where the audience would eventually get to see the finished

film. An option for the respondents to circle was 'never'. No one gave this as

an answer which supported our thoughts that the use of the cinema would be

important in promoting our product and communicating with the audience.

We realized that the cinema is not the only method of an audience member viewing

a trailer so asked where else they might see a trailer. The use of TV adverts

and online trailers were also popular viewing methods and gave us other areas to

place our product so the trailer would reach the maximum number of our target

audience members.

The feedback determined that a trailer was the most popular factor which

encouraged them to want to see a horror movie. Other than that, the response was

that When someone recommended a film to them it helped convince them to want to

see it. This information motivated us to want to create a good Promotional

trailer as whether someone wants to see the final film is heavily influenced by

such.

The majority of people responded that they 'rarely' watch a horror film, usually

only when a good trailer is promoting the film. When the respondents visit the

cinema, genres watch include the options comedy (6), horror (2), thriller (3),

romantic (1), as well as action and adventure. With the responses from the

sample of people who answered this questionnaire, the horror genre is less

popular than other genre. However this is not discouraging us from creating a

horror genre trailer as this questionnaire was only given to a sample of people.

From other responses we have received from this questionnaire we plan to create

the supernatural horror sub genre as it was the most popular in this sample, and

as we have viewed inspirational texts for such we feel we could be successful in

developing a supernatural sub genre horror trailer.

 

 

Few ideas for our trailer - planning

We think the following ideas if we could according to our story of the trailer, include them in our trailer would make our trailer more appealing and attractive to our audience. This is some research and ideas we got from recent horror films:

• Heartbeat sound effects. 
• Camera panning slowly with constant dramatic sound. 
• Turn screen black - special effects. 
• Sound loud as the scene goes. 
• Video tape reversing creates a eerie sound
• Short scenes.  
• Minimise the amount of writing on screen as audience should understand by moving image. 
• Total text on show; approximately 3 time, e.g production log, film title and release date.

Institutions/ Logo

There is a variety of film institutes that could potentially be appropriate to our product.

20th Century Fox
The organisation was founded in 1935 and the film institution is now recognised around the world. They have created successful films such as: Avatar, Star Wars, Speed, The Chronicles of Narnia, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Doctor Do-little, Night at the Museum and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The majority of their most popular films are family films in the genre of comedy.
 The horror products they have been involved in, include: From Hell, Jennifer's Body, The Haunting of Molly Hartley and Shutters. Each of these, 20th Century Fox only distributed. Thus if we used 20th Century Fox as our institution they could promote it world wide gaining us a wider audience but in our opinion non of these horror films were exactly box office hits, and therefore we would choose not to use them.

Warner Brothers
Warner Brothers is a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of creative content. Their most popular film which they created are: Harry Potter, Valentines Day, Sex and the City, The Hangover, The Dark Knight and Slum dog Millionaire. The genres they produce and distribute range from comedy, romance, fantasy, adventure, action and horror. They are involved in a variety of films which are aimed at different types of audiences and most of the films they create are high grossing. Many of our favourite films  have been created by Warner Brothers.
We feel Warner Brothers would be appropriate to use as our institution as after researching we found they have produced a fair few well known and successful horror films. This includes: Orphan, Friday the 13th, One Missed Call, Sweeney Todd, The Wicker Man and House of Wax. It appears Warner Brothers is more willing to experiment in the type of genre of films they are involved in, this leads to them being experienced within the horror genre and they could potentially make our film successful through the trailer we produce.

Universal Pictures
This institution was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, making it one of the oldest American Movie Studios still in continuos production. Universal Pictures crates and distributes filmed entertainment. It tends to focus its efforts on the genres of drama, romance and adventure. Recent successful films include: Brokeback Mountain, Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, King Kong and Lost in Translation. They tend to not to create films outside of these genres, which are in their comfort zone.
However they have taken risks in the past, which have paid off. Dracula (1931) was a hit at the time of release, however more recent horror films by Universal have been more of a flop in our eyes such as 'Drag me to Hell' and 'The Strangers'. Thus we do not find that having Universal Studios as our institution for this particular product would be very rewarding.

Lionsgate
Lionsgate is an entrainment company formed in Vancouver but is now headquartered in California. As of 2007, it is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America, producing and distributing motion pictures, television programming, home entertainment and family entertainment. Research shows that the organisation prefer to be involved in drama, action and thriller films. Their most popular films are Saw1/2/3/4/5/6 and My Bloody Valentine.  However, their success is recent and does not span back long enough to give the institution full credibility as a successful producer/distributor. Also, they are more involved in creating thrillers rather than horrors. Their films are gory, involving blood and guts. Whereas our trailer is going to be a more typical horror and will feature the fear of the unknown. Therefore, we feel that as an institute for our product, Lionsgate would not be suitable as they do not have enough experience.


Overall, we agree that Warner Brothers has the most potential to be an appropriate institute for our horror trailer. They have the experience we feel is necessary to create a memorable horror film and they have the tools to help the film reach a mass audience around the world, providing the trailer with the possibility of huge success.

Thus we have created our own institution basing it on Warner Brothers and hope for similar success.In regards to creating a institution logo for our institution, we began by discussing possible ideas together. This gave us an initial idea what we agreed upon. We then created some brief design sketches of our ideas. As 'Aziz Productions' is a institution creating films, our basic concept was to incorporate an element into the logo which made it obvious what the objective of the company was, creating and distributing films. Therefore we included movie reel and film into the logo.

From this first design stage, we then felt that our strongest logo was the following, thus this is what we will develop into our final institution logo. We felt it was the most suitable as it is memorable and eyecatching with a quick quirky name thus unique.It is also credible for a film production company as it features such as a movie reel and film.

The following images show the development of the logo in stages to the finished item.

 It was once we completed this stage, that we felt the film on 'A' looked more like ladders than a film. We then adjusted this to make it more obvious that this was a film reel.

The problem we came across was that as we were scanning the logo, printing it and adjusting it, it has resized. Thus the extra line divides do not match up. We continued to play about with editing the logo, and eventually matched up the reel to give it the end look we were hoping for. 

However the 'S' does not match up with the rest of the 'productions'. We went over it in a black marker like we had with the previous letters at a earlier stage, but the S was misproportioned and chunky. So we editied the word out and typed the 'productions' back into the logo to give it a more smartly finished look.

The following is the final logo. We are happy to present this to audiences as we think it clearly represents what the institution is about. 

Post Modernism

Post modernism development can be traced back to modernism. It was an artistic movement around 1890 to 1930. It challenges traditional materials and methods of art, music, literature and architecture. Random elements come together to produce fragmented forms. The normal distinction between genres like poetry and novels becomes blurred and texts have now changed completely.

Traditional beliefs began to be challenged in the late 19th century and early 20th century, such as Nietzsche claiming 'God is Dead' in 1882. Post modernism enjoys the absence of such beliefs and finds this loss liberating and exciting. Post modernists will enjoy visiting past with irony. A post modern text will be lively, upbeat, ironic and includes jokes that the audience which is referred to as intertextuality. Its playful attitude has a optimistic view of the world while it celebrates the chaos of its content.

Post modern texts choose style over substance. It invites us to admire the stylishness of the text instead of the story line. While modernism views itself s a high format of art and for the elite, post modernism rejects this distinction between high culture and low culture and is intended for the masses who have equal worthiness. Also a post modern text tends to break generic rules and mixes genres in the film.

Recent post modern texts include:

• Romeo and Juliet

• Minority Report

• Moulan Rouge

• Pulp Fiction

We have now viewed and analysed some clips from Pulp Fiction while answering some questions set for us by our course teacher:

How post modern is ‘Pulp Fiction’?

Does Pulp Fiction refer to other films?

Before the shooting of this film, John Travolta’s best known roles see him dancing within the film, such as ‘Grease’, ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Staying Alive’. The character Vincent Vega is a hit-man  and thus does not have much in common with Travolta’s previous characters. However the director still opted to include a scene in this film that had the role of Vincent dance and because it was Travolta in the role the scene is not out of place the way it may have been if another actor played the gangster role but with Travolta’s previous film history it makes sense. Without the scene of Travolta dancing the film will have been no less credible. Therefore this reference to John Travolta’s other films is ironic in this film and is a postmodern reference.

In the scene where Mia and Vincent are in the restaurant, their servers are iconic people of the past including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. The character of Marilyn Monroe can be seen standing over a vent with the wind blowing whilst she holds her dress down. This is a reference to her film ‘The Seven Year Itch’ in which this is an iconic pose of hers. The irony of these characters being included is that the restaurant is presented to the audience as a fun, lively and enjoyable place to be. The postmodern irony of the scene including these characters is that today we usually view them in a dramatic way because of the tragic fate of their lives. Marilyn Monroe is said to have committed suicide, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash and Elvis Presley died of what is said to be a prescription drug overdose.

What different genres does Pulp Fiction play upon?

Pulp Fiction is a mix of genres. Part of it is a gangster film; two of the main characters are mobster hit men, whom work for a gangster whose wife is also featured as a main character. Blaxploitation can be seen within the film through the character of Jules. The film can also be seen as a boxer film: the gangster Marcellus Wallace pays an aging boxer to lose his next fight, however the boxer ends up killing his opponent. There is also elements of romance and crime in the film: Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are in a relationship but are also thieves who in the film we see decided to rob the restaurant their eating at. Some may also see the film to be partly in the genre of a musical as music from different eras plays throughout the film.

How does Pulp fiction mix elements of high and low culture?

The audience is shown Mia’s house, which is presented as high culture and gives an impression of the character. There is artwork throughout, her home is surrounded with security camera and she also has an intercom to speak to other people within the house. However, she chooses to go to a restaurant, which seems a ‘cheesy’, cheap place to eat. Vincent suggests going to a different place where they can get a steak. But Mia is adamant she likes this restaurant and he can get a steak here. This presents low culture within the film. She orders a burger and shake whilst Vincent chooses a steak and vanilla coke. Its ironic she orders the most expensive drink on the menu for $5, which seems to shock Vincent. 

What is the effect of Mia magically drawing a square on the screen?

Names, places and brands are mentioned which the audience is more than likely already aware of such as Vanilla Coke, Elvis Presley, McDonald's etc. By Mia magically drawing the square on the screen it reminds us, the audience, that we are just watching a film. And whilst some elements are constructions of reality of what we would actually come across in daily lives and not consider unusual, the magically drawn box is there in effect to make us clearly understand what we see is not all actually true. If I were to draw a box in front of you now, you would not actually see white dots come out of the fingers and create the image of a box.

What is the effect of giving such a number of characters equal screen time?

The different characters have their own main story line within the film. The characters do not seem connected but their stories create a series incidents creating the over all story line of the film. By giving the characters equal screen time, it does not specify that one characters story is more important than another’s and thus presents each character as equal in making up the overall story.

In what ways are the narrative and the sense of location and era fragmented and/or disorientated?

The narrative of Pulp Fiction is not like an ordinary films narrative. The stories are intertwined and thus to the audience the story may be confusing as they do not know what is happening to who when. There is not really a sense of chronological order to the story, what is happening at the opening of the film, continues at the end which is a fragmented story and may disorientate the audience.

From this task, we feel we have grasped the concept of what post modernism is. However we do not feel it is an appropriate theory to apply to our product.
Our trailer does not mix genres. It is a horror genre and we agree it does not spill over into any other genre enough to comment that it is mixed. Also, our product does not have elements of high or low culture for us to regard the product as post modern in this sense.
The product can be seen as fragmented, but this is because the product is trailer. Its not an intentional choice to give a disorientated narrative in what may be consider a post modern way, it is only because the product is a trailer thus we narrate a proportion of the plot and not the whole actual story line.

Organising personnel and equipment

We made sure that all the characters we would like to include in our trailer as actors are willing to take part and were happy with the roles they will be playing. We informed them with all the details of the procedure and the purpose of our product via written and verbal communication. We thought this was a good idea as this allowed the producers (being us) and the actors to engage and discuss any queries they had before the making of the trailer started. The actors were informed about the confidentiality of this product and who might have access to it. This action was also important in reducing any ethical issues.
Therefore, this is some of the evidence of the written consents from the participants acting in our trailer and the commentators of our Facebook page which helped in our research and planning of our product.

 

Deconstruction of a Trailer

We have individually deconstructed the trailer for Paranormal Activity. We chose to deconstruct this particular trailer as it is within the genre of horror, similarly to our trailer. Thus by breaking down the elements which go into the trailer, we can take inspiration for our own trailer as to what creates a successful one. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the elements we particuarly liked from this trailer and plan to incorporate into our trailer includes the use of sound to exaggerate actions and makes scenes more dramatic as well as also using silence at the right time to create suspense. The 'Paranormal Activity' trailer uses what sounds like a pulse in the background, asif to mimick their heartbeats with the volume increases as their fear increases and heart races.

 

We also think the lightening was used well. Its lowkey, which is typical in the horror genre as the shadows increase the element of the unknown and keeps the audience on edge. We plan to have similar lighting in our trailer as the dark is a common fear for people and thus this puts them in a vunerable position.

 

We have created a script for our product, however we have advised the actors to follow the script to a degree but improvise as we feel it comes across more natural rather than them learning lines word for word and then their facial expressions on camera give away that they are struggling to remember the set script as our actors are our friends not professional actors.

 

 

Filming Schedule

Filming Schedule:

When: Wednesday 22^nd January 2013

Location: Fence Houses

Actors: Connor Llewellyn, Lesley Charlton and Emma Murray

Props: Torch, marshmallows, fire pit, chairs, campfire, fake blood.

Possible problem that may arise: if filming is not completed within schedule, its will be necessary to gather all actors together to film more content. For continuity reason they would need to wear the same clothing as previously and have the same makeup/ hairstyles.

Action Plan