Four days till deadline

After a long process of research, filming, editing and more filming, the finish line is finally in sight. We have four days left until we have to present our horror film trailer and hope that it has the right effect on the audience. Showing our Trailer to the class will be perfect to see the response of our intended audience as there the exact age we think our film will appeal to.

So far today I have started reviewing our project and trying to spot any way that our trailer can be improved, I have spotted one shot that I would like to re-film, this is the shot that shows a torch shining towards the church and will and highlighting graffiti on the wall that says ‘Help’. This shot is framed perfectly however the text on the wall is not clear and too faint to see in the four second long shot. This will not be a problem to re-shot as the land is public so we can use it any time of the day.

For the rest of the day I plan to try and spot anymore errors in our production, I hope that there will be a minimal amount to correct. Also I hope that the group can meet some point in the day and we can arrange a day before the deadline to organise a day that we are all free to return to cold Christmas and obtain this last shot. I also hope that the group can come to a decision about fonts for the credits so that every element of our production can be complete. All of this can be easily completed by the end of today.

Font (Edit)

When we believed we had finally finished our trailer, we watched the trailer over and over again. Whilst we were doing this we noticed that there was something that we all clearly didn’t like. This was the title of the film, however it is not our opinion that matters and we wanted to ask our intended audience (Teenagers) what they thought of it. Some people where very positive and upbeat about it but the majority said they found it cheesy and irrelevant to the type of film we aim to promote by the horror trailer. We asked the people we asked to name a film trailer title font that really stuck in their mind and one which is instantly recognizable when they see it again. For example when they see the DVD we want our consumers to know straight away that it’s ‘The Recluse’. Eight of the twelve people we asked immediately said ‘Saw’ and the second most popular was 'Nightmare on Elm Street'. We have started to do some more research on fonts and I personally believe that a font like 'Nightmare on Elm Street' would be perfect for our trailer. Designing has begun and will be uploaded as soon as it is completed.

Feedback for trailer at this point in production

When we showed our rough cut to the class there where mixed reviews, there where lots of positives to take away from it, however the class did notice a few errors and room for improvement. We took on board all of the comments that we received, by editing the bad and highlighting the good. By showing this to the class at this point was very useful as the age of the class is the age that we believe the film trailer will most appeal to, so we really valued their opinion on our production so far. The list below is a review of the good and bad comments.

Positive

Music – One class member said that the slow music at the beginning helped to create tension, and that the faster music when the pace of the trailer changes was effective and matched the flow of the horror trailer.

Shots – It was said that the opening establishing shots helped to create tension and help give off an eeire atmosphere. This is what intended with our opening shots.

Sound – The sound was one of our best things according to our audience, they admired the fact that we went out and recorded the majority of our own sound, For example the gun shot and the sound that involved the scissors clicking between each transition.

Transitions – Most of the class agreed that we had a good variety of transitions and they were typical of what you would expect in a horror film trailer. We used transitions like cross dissolve, dip to black, dip to white, simple blackouts and many others. They also mentioned that we used quick snappy transitions between each shot; these are transitions that are associated with this type of production.

Negative

Music – Although our music had the right pace and tempo, some people believed that the music was not relevant to the trailer and that tune was not suited the horror film production.

Shots – Miss Grant Muller (Our teacher) said that in her opinion our killer was introduced way to early, we asked the class for a second opinion, some people agreed we listened to this feedback as the people evaluating our production are the age of our intended audience.

Sound – Remove any background sound, to this we will mute the production and any dialogue or sound will be added into it.

Transitions – some transitions where considered too long, to correct this we will just simply shorten them so that the transitions are much snappier and quicker.