Evaluation Task 3

The intended outcome of our production was to engage with our target audience, making them want to view our film at the cinema. The purpose of a trailer is to advertise our film and establish part of the narrative and genre. The trailer creates enigmas therefore making the audience want to watch the film to find these answers of the enigmas. We wanted our trailer to be shocking and hook the audience’s attention. By using action sequences, crime and disruptions to the equilibrium  all create a sense threat and violence, making the audience want to watch it. For example, when the unidentified killer attacks one of the female victims and drags her down the stairs in a extremely violent way.
Our poster is a tool to make our film recognizable, it creates a visual identity and reinforces the trailer. The purpose of the poster is to attract the audience and make them want to see the film, if they see the poster they will immediately recognize the film's main genre appeal, therefore marketing the film. To further promote our film we have made a website used as a key medium to give the audience information about the film  but also like the poster, it creates a brand or visual identity establishing genre, character and themes. We have used the same fonts and style so the audience will recognize the film. We had the title of the film 'The Return' in a Gothic style font and in the colour red, immediately connoting the genre. We had fake blood patches in the corners of the website pages, further highlighting the genre and create the horror/thriller effect. On the home page of the website we also had a slogan, which captures the plot of the film in a sentence and sticks in the audiences mind, 'How far would you go to get revenge?' it provokes thought in their head and immediately makes them want to find out more. On the synopsis page, we have star ratings out of 5, showing the audience we have gained 4/5 off well known papers, such as the 'The Guardian' suggesting to them that it is a good film to see. In today's technological society it is vital to have a website coinciding with your film and creates a wider audience. People who might not seen the poster are more likely to see our film's website, enabling them to see the trailer and read about it.

As the Internet and social networking sites are increasingly popular creating a website enables us to promote our film to an even wider audience, possibly around the world, which is knows as viral marketing, as a person may send a link the to the website to their friends on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter; their friends then pass this on creating exponential growth in successful sites. This is also why we have put our Facebook and Twitter pages on the website, meaning that the audience can find out even further information and discuss it socially with their friends.

Our storyboard was a rough guideline to follow whilst we were filming our trailer. However when we started filming we decided to change shots and some of the order to what looked most effective. The story board was a good foundation to start with and helped order our shots, arrange our narrative and gain insight into what our finished trailer sequence might look like. We scanned our storyboard and made it into an animation so we could follow the shots and see how if our trailer had progressed from the storyboard. We found that we did change the order and shot types however we did use some of our planned shots which were highly effective in our trailer which can be seen below.

 

As a group we looked at previous film posters from our genre, we took ideas and typical key features that they used. Rizwana then used these ideas in creating our poster on the software Fireworks; she used stills from the trailer and dark colours to establish the thriller/horror genre of our production. She stuck to key conventions of other posters, such as, production company logos, ratings off critics and striking pictures. She put institutional information under the title which we observed from other posters as a common feature. We used the same fonts and colour scheme across our trailer, poster and website; this creates a brand image/style and makes them visually linked to one another.

Before attempting to make the website, as a group we looked at websites for other thrillers and horrors, such as ‘Sinister’ and ‘Captivity’ we looked at conventions they had used on their websites and decided to take key bits and adapt them to ours.  They used colours, animations and pictures to establish the genre. For example Sinister used a montage of quick flashing images from the film which showed scary and graphic images. They had also used both sharp and blurry fonts which connote violence and death or demise creating elements of fear and horror. We decided to use colours of black, white and red on our website as these are commonly used to connote the thriller/horror genre and suggests threat and dark subject matter. The red connotes blood and danger where the black and white connote the binary oppositions of good and evil in the film.

Sinister Website
The Return Website

 

As our genre is a thriller/horror hybrid the mise-en-scene is important in making it look effective and to be successful. The audience will be expecting common conventions they have seen before; these include weapons, violence, blood, the ‘murderer’, close ups of frightened facial expressions, isolated locations, dark costume for the ‘murderer’, tensions and suspense. We tried to include all of the above in our trailer to establish the horror/thriller hybrid genre. For example in our production we have used typical thriller/horror weapons such as a baseball bat and a knife. We used a variety of shots to create different tensions and atmospheres. We used close ups of facial expressions to show fear and worry of our faces which create tension with the audience and is a common convention of previous of the same genre.

Creating suspense and tension is a key element in  a successful thriller/horror, we have done this in various ways.  Near the beginning of our production we see a baseball bat swinging towards the camera it is filmed as a point of view shot, this immediately establishes the genre and that it will include violence. There is also close ups of the killer cutting out pictures which establishes his persona to audience as being psychotic and help the audience understand he has specific victims in mind. Also in our trailer there is a close up of the victims face being grabbed showing violence and creating fear with the audience, which is common of the genre.

For example In the film ‘Tamara’, which has a similar revenge story  to ours, the eponymous 'hero' uses a knife to cut off one of her victims nose, ears and eyes. We incorporated this into our trailer and used a knife as a weapon for revenge. On the other hand in ‘Tamara’ there is the use of supernatural which is more common of horror films, in our trailer we tried to make it look realistic so used real weapons and made the killer completely human, which we also did for practicality as a student making a trailer.

Stylistically we used chiaroscuro, low key high contrast lighting. This creates dark shadows connoting the dark and threatening content of the film. This lighting is commonly used in thriller and horror films to create tension and a tense atmosphere. We used this in our trailer as it adds drama and suspense as connotations of darkness are negative such as fear, mystery and the unknown. By using this lighting it suggests to the audience that the content is not to going to be cheery and happy and prepares them for the sinister content.

In our production we have also used jump cuts, these create drama and are typically used in trailers to create a fast pace. Jumps cuts create a sense of dislocation and a sense of shock. We used this when the killer is following one of the victims on a car park, we used the jump cuts to show him getting ever closer which creates suspense and fear with the audience.

We incorporated fast paced music, in which we  inserted in places where  tension levels need to rise. The music coincides with the scenes of action and helps highlight the danger and violence. Using effective music helps establish the genre as people associate dramatic fast paced music with horror/thriller films as it signifies tension, fear and danger to the audience. At the beginning of our trailer we decided to use a voice over, which states 'a mental patient has escaped a high secure facility.' This immediately signifies danger and helps establish the narrative straight away so the audience can easy understand what the films about. The voice over is also a common convention of thriller/horror trailers as they create drama and a immediate sense of panic with the audience.