As part of our ancillary products, we have been asked to create a Film magazine front page. Film magazines are a chance to review, interview and advertise upcoming actors and films. They also celebrate and provide information on films past and present and from the films we hate, to the films we love.
"Empire" is one of the UK s' best selling film magazine which focuses on popular titles attracting a wide target audience, usually high budget films. A huge percent of their readers are male and regular buyers fit into the stereotypical film fanatic. Common traits in Empire which may relate to the male association is the use of heavy imagery, very little text and any writing there is, tends to be big, bold and vibrant.
For any magazine, the front cover is the decider of whether they will find it interesting this week or even appealing enough to pick it up to read what they can find inside. Some of the main codes and conventions that you expect to see on a film magazine front cover are as follows:
- Mainly a close up shot showing the actor or a shot in costume from the film.
- A common convention in most magazines, the big bold mast header along the top of the page. Taking empire for example, it is a worldwide well known magazine and sometimes the image overlaps the header yet is still easily identified as being Empire.
-Film magazines tend to use dark, primary colours because they are simple and bold.
-The names of actors, actresses and famous directors are featured on the front to draw in all kinds of different target audiences.
-Only three/ four colours maximum are used on the front cover to maintain the simplicity of the magazine. Always fitted with the genre of the film their advertising.
Monday
Wednesday
Filming- Behind the camera
During shots I voiced over them to give directions and the position of where I wanted the actor to lay and what I needed him to do
Here are a view clips with voice cues over the top.
Here are a view clips with voice cues over the top.
Tuesday
Target Audience
My initial thought of target audience I have been working for is that of 18-35 year olds and statistically it says that around 75% of people who watch thriller film are students.
This means that for my genre being Sci-fi, psychological thriller I feel it will also appeal most to this core target audience. I feel it will appeal to males more so but also females who enjoy films such as dark water and saw. The connection having a male actor will also emphasis the appeal for males in the story line way.
1. Who is your target audience? Primarily Males ages 18-35 who love thought provoking movies such as inception.
2. Where is your target audience located? The UK as the BBFC guidelines are what my film will be based on. It won't have any materials that would offend other cultures, however different places have different rating systems on what they find acceptable.
3. Is the group primarily male or female? Male- there is a higher percentage of males who prefer sci fi films such as inception. And also films such as hostel and saw, males find more entertaining and less scary/gory then females stereotypically.
5. What do they do for a living? Mainly students. But also they would usually not be married without children. Enjoy computers, cars and star wars. They would mostly have creative, hands on jobs and have a high IQ and enjoy films with a twist and doesnt display the obvious.
6. What level of education do they have? Most would enjoy school and love learning and have a clear guide of what they want to do and a good attention span- linking with the thought provoking and film that makes you think stereotype.
7. What kind of lifestyle do they lead? Sociable, very educated with a high interest in latest films, gadgets etc with a love for horrors they wouldnt really enjoy rom-coms or soppy films.
8. What are their special interests or hobbies? Hands on jobs, reading detective books, kept up to dates with what is going on in the world around them. They would also enjoy playing games on the computer.
This means that for my genre being Sci-fi, psychological thriller I feel it will also appeal most to this core target audience. I feel it will appeal to males more so but also females who enjoy films such as dark water and saw. The connection having a male actor will also emphasis the appeal for males in the story line way.
1. Who is your target audience? Primarily Males ages 18-35 who love thought provoking movies such as inception.
2. Where is your target audience located? The UK as the BBFC guidelines are what my film will be based on. It won't have any materials that would offend other cultures, however different places have different rating systems on what they find acceptable.
3. Is the group primarily male or female? Male- there is a higher percentage of males who prefer sci fi films such as inception. And also films such as hostel and saw, males find more entertaining and less scary/gory then females stereotypically.
5. What do they do for a living? Mainly students. But also they would usually not be married without children. Enjoy computers, cars and star wars. They would mostly have creative, hands on jobs and have a high IQ and enjoy films with a twist and doesnt display the obvious.
6. What level of education do they have? Most would enjoy school and love learning and have a clear guide of what they want to do and a good attention span- linking with the thought provoking and film that makes you think stereotype.
7. What kind of lifestyle do they lead? Sociable, very educated with a high interest in latest films, gadgets etc with a love for horrors they wouldnt really enjoy rom-coms or soppy films.
8. What are their special interests or hobbies? Hands on jobs, reading detective books, kept up to dates with what is going on in the world around them. They would also enjoy playing games on the computer.
Monday
Planning of Teaser Trailer
To consider every aspect of my teaser trailer a lot of planning must be conducted. After brainstorming several ideas and thinking up different settings and story lines.
After depicting what was the best and most realistic story lines this is a break down I have come up with that covers many aspects to allow me to have a clear view of how my piece is going.
Taking inspiration from dark, haunting trailers such as Frozen and Hostel I have picked out similar conventions and brainstormed ideas based on a psychological thriller.
These ideas have come about from location viewing, story lines that work well with the equipment I have however it is still a rough outline and during the process may alter slightly.
Visions.
Title- Wired – this is due to the thought of electrical/scientific equipment/ investigations.
Genre- psychological thriller
Target audience- 18-35 years who enjoy psychology, deep thinking independent films
Style- gritty looking, nothing to glamorous on camera creating a sense of kidnap, torture and danger.
Here below is a series on images, inter-titles and other music videos that has helped inspire ideas and create an overall look.
Plot summary
Teaser trailers do not intend to create a flowing, obvious story line it is simply a hint to what is to come creating a sense of genre and the use on inter-titles sometimes help give an overview of the plot.
The overview I have come to is this. A young male age 19-20 goes missing with no trace of murder or anything else just disappears. The rest of the film consists of bodies of other people similarly been taken used for scientific experiments and torture to see how the human body reacts. More and more happens throughout to create suspense and struggle to get away. A shrine to him throughout with many close up stalker like images and videos strung throughout to create a sense of being watched and researched.
Narrative
The trailer will hopefully begin with the sense of someone missing, a odd figure surrounded in this shrine to him and images, headlines presenting to the male that no one knows where he is or where to look so a sense of being stuck is given. Then the trailer will build with quicker shots of escape, torture and scientific equipment and end with the shrine being destroyed or the candles blown out to symbolise the end.
After depicting what was the best and most realistic story lines this is a break down I have come up with that covers many aspects to allow me to have a clear view of how my piece is going.
Taking inspiration from dark, haunting trailers such as Frozen and Hostel I have picked out similar conventions and brainstormed ideas based on a psychological thriller.
These ideas have come about from location viewing, story lines that work well with the equipment I have however it is still a rough outline and during the process may alter slightly.
Visions.
Title- Wired – this is due to the thought of electrical/scientific equipment/ investigations.
Genre- psychological thriller
Target audience- 18-35 years who enjoy psychology, deep thinking independent films
Style- gritty looking, nothing to glamorous on camera creating a sense of kidnap, torture and danger.
Here below is a series on images, inter-titles and other music videos that has helped inspire ideas and create an overall look.
Plot summary
Teaser trailers do not intend to create a flowing, obvious story line it is simply a hint to what is to come creating a sense of genre and the use on inter-titles sometimes help give an overview of the plot.
The overview I have come to is this. A young male age 19-20 goes missing with no trace of murder or anything else just disappears. The rest of the film consists of bodies of other people similarly been taken used for scientific experiments and torture to see how the human body reacts. More and more happens throughout to create suspense and struggle to get away. A shrine to him throughout with many close up stalker like images and videos strung throughout to create a sense of being watched and researched.
Narrative
The trailer will hopefully begin with the sense of someone missing, a odd figure surrounded in this shrine to him and images, headlines presenting to the male that no one knows where he is or where to look so a sense of being stuck is given. Then the trailer will build with quicker shots of escape, torture and scientific equipment and end with the shrine being destroyed or the candles blown out to symbolise the end.
Re-visiting storyboard
When looking at other trailers, a typical convention of them had the production company advertised at the start only for a few seconds. I have created my own brand name and have kept it simple by simply having "A muddle box production" in white on a black background to then use a cross disolve transition to a different typography of it- cracked being the most likely at the moment to set the horror genre theme straight away similar to the typography in trailers such as "Hostel"
In these shots, I will use a photo collage of the actor with headlines such that post questions such as Murder?, What happened? Missing. Itll then have a transition into a candle being lit in front of this collage that the criminal has collected and created to then appear as a sort of shrine.
For this shot I want to try to create a spot light on the victims face of them having been tied up and this being all you can see so that it begins the trailer of slowly still asking questions.
For my middle section of the trailer, I want to use quick shots one after the other to build tension and keep viewers entertained this will be achieved by quick editing with effective shots. I have already played around with shots outside using water and the actor throwing it back up as a hint into torture or attempt of murder via drowning. The shots I did as practice have worked effectively and I will upload these as development towards my final trailer. The second image is just a hand trying to escape from being tied up. Simple but effective.
These shots are other ones I have thought of that I dont have to record much off to give a sense of what is going on. Tbere is a person being tied up and dragged by their feet. Then a display of tools and electrical equipment the criminal is using in his experiment.
Again, these are just quickly drawn, quickly thought of attempts to keep pace in the middle fast. There is a shot of seeing someone being wired and also another shot from the outside "drowning" shots.
This scene mirrors the start shot yet we see the actor trying to break away. Then again we are shown the shrine with the candle yet the candle is being blown out. This slows down the trailer bringing it to an end yet still asking questions.
Sunday
Collage of inspiration
Through my research I have put together a collage of images that give a similar feel to what I would like to achieve within the same genre. These have been screen grabbed via youtube from music videos and trailers.
Saturday
Voice over research
After two of my favourite teaser trailers being Remember me- where the actor uses his voice from the film as a narrative for the trailer and 500 days of summer- where instead of inter titles a male voice is spoken over the top to create the narrative, I looked into voice overs to see if they worked with horror/thriller genres.
Short sentences seem to be used continuously moving the narrative swiftly on. In 500 days of summer it doesn't give to much away but creates a narrative which really suits the independent quirky love film.
Why I feel a voice over is good to use, is that is captures the audiences attention where you can but pictures/shots to words to create a overall image and idea of what the film is about. However, in watching thriller trailers, this is never present it is diagetic sounds from the scenes used as sound effects to enhance the genre. I think using effects on the inter titles will help reiterate the intended genre without taking focus away from what they are watching. This is where music is very important in supporting the inter-titles and helping it all flow together.
Short sentences seem to be used continuously moving the narrative swiftly on. In 500 days of summer it doesn't give to much away but creates a narrative which really suits the independent quirky love film.
Why I feel a voice over is good to use, is that is captures the audiences attention where you can but pictures/shots to words to create a overall image and idea of what the film is about. However, in watching thriller trailers, this is never present it is diagetic sounds from the scenes used as sound effects to enhance the genre. I think using effects on the inter titles will help reiterate the intended genre without taking focus away from what they are watching. This is where music is very important in supporting the inter-titles and helping it all flow together.
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