Audience Research survey results

It trailer analysis

It is a remake of the 1990 version of Stephen King's novel turned mini-series also called It. It is based in a small American town (Derry, Maine) where children are going missing, the film features Pennywise the clown, a killer clown who has a history of murder and violence that dates back for centuries. The trailer is 152 seconds long, which is the average time of a full length horror trailer.

The trailer begins with a close-up shot of the older brother making a paper boat for his younger brother Georgie to play with in the street. The trailer continues with Georgie chasing his paper boat down the street in heavy rainfall, this is pathetic fallacy and could be connoting the emotions of the town's people. The paper boat floats down a drain to which Georgie reaches down the drain and reveals a jumpscare to both us and himself when Pennywise the clown is seen down the drain, this helps to introduce the villain of the film to the audience. This is followed by the intertitle "From Stephen King's terrifying novel". this gives audience members background information on the origins of the film and the film's narrative.

One of the next scenes in the trailer is of the outside of a high school at the end of the school day, with the camera panning out to a noticeboard with warnings issued by the police department reinforcing "REMEMBER THE CURFEW 7 P.M." with the 7 in red colour, the colour red is a connotation of danger meaning that if the children aren't in by 7 they could face dangers as police notices are for public safety. This is then followed by a shot of a missing boy poster on a telephone pole informing the audience of past events in the town of Derry, showing that the equilibrium of the film's diegesis already has a negative tone to it.

The scene before the action begins is in a classroom setting where we see a young boy turning around to see a singular red balloon floating through the classroom. The red is a connotation of danger whereas the balloon implies innocence, this could be suggesting that the innocent children are in danger, the sound mixing to go along with this scene creates a strange eerie noise, this is to build suspense before the action begins. One of the following scenes uses an establishing shot to make us aware of the location. this happens to be an old abandoned mansion in which the children are stopped in front of looking curiously at, this leads us to believe the house will be a key part in the film.

In another scene the boys are seen sat in a house with the blinds shut, which we could presume is the mansion, viewing old photos via an old projector on the wall. The images begin with family photos, they then progress to getting faster out of the childrens control, the photos then become pictures of Pennywise the clown, to which when the scene cuts we see the children fleeing from the mansion.

At the end of the trailer intertitles "THIS SEPTEMBER", "WHAT", "ARE YOU", "AFRAID OF?" with the soundtrack intensifying after each intertitle getting eerier and louder building suspense and tension, accompanied by intense scenes of action of the children running away from Pennywise and getting stalked by Pennywise with a close up shot of Pennywise's claw like nails coming out ready to attack, this ensures that the audience know that he is the villain within the film and with it being a scary scene makes the audience watching feel frightened. The trailer ends with Georgie and his brother Bill in the sewers to which Georgie says "Bill if you come with me you'll float too", Georgie keeps repeating "you'll float too" and with each time he says it his face gets more and more sinister until he shouts "you'll float too" and Pennywise comes out from under the water and runs to the camera with a loud scream to create a jumpscare. Georgie saying "you'll float too" links back to the beginning when his brother makes him a paper boat to play with which falls into the sewer, which is where the last scene of the trailer is taking place, giving audiences the impression of the sewer being an important location to the film's narrative.

The Boy trailer analysis

The Boy is a mystery horror film directed by William Brent Bell in 2016. The film is about an American babysitter (Lauren Cohan) who is hired to babysit for an English family who's child is a life-sized doll, after she violates a strict set of rules, disturbing events make her believe the doll is actually alive. The trailer lasts 144 seconds, which is average for a full length horror trailer.

The trailer begins with a long shot of the English family's mansion, establishing the location which the film is going to take place at, this is conventional of many trailers and not just horror trailers as it gives the audience insight into where the film's events are going to happen or one of the key locations of the film, in The Boy it gives the audience an . This is then followed by a variety of different mid shots and mid long shots and an over the shoulder shot introducing the main character (Greta), the Heelshire family and the doll, Greta is hown in most shots so viewers can identify her as the leading character of the film.

Near the beginning of the trailer Greta is given a list of rules by the doll's parents to follow which include "Don't cover his face", "Never leave him alone" and "Don't forget to feed him", these rules take up the full screen on the trailer one after the over accompanied by Greta going against these rules after each rule is displayed on screen before the next, in the last of the three scenes of Greta defying the list of rules given to her the doll is at the dinner table whilst she is scraping a plate of food, presumably for the doll, into the bin, in the next shot the doll is no longer at the table, this is the beginning of the film's events taking place.

At the beginning of the trailer there is a calming soundtrack which contains chiming instruments, this helps to create a sombre atmosphere. The trailer contains lots of dialogue, this builds narrative and familiarises us with the characters, for example, we learn that the owners of the house are English and that the babysitter is American. As the action in the trailer intensifies, the background music becomes sharper and louder, this is to create tension within the scenes. Finally, at the end the sound is mixed to play a slow lullaby, this connotes the idea of innocence, however the high pitched noise and its similarity to a jack in a box makes it seem sinister.

As the trailer progresses the lighting contrasts from ambient naturalistic light then saturates making the scenes appear dull and darker. This is to connote the dark themes that are going to play out within the film, as well as this the pace of the editing of shots shortens and more action takes place as well as intertitles "WHEN YOU BREAK HIS RULES", "YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE", "WILL COME TO LIFE" with the intensity of the scenes progressing into more scary scenes showing violence and paranormal activities and at the end of the trailer there is a jumpscare where Greta leans to get a closer look at a painting of Brahms (the doll) and is grabbed by the throat and pulled towards it, with this being a fast scene combined with a loud noise it creates an effective jumpscare.

Trailer feedback

Moodboard

Storyboard

Shot list

Location Recces

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?

Film distribution

A film distributor is responsible for the marketing of a film whether it be for a specific target audience, a broader target audience or a large target audience. The film distributor creates a promotional campaign for the film. The film distributor also decides what platforms the film will be put out on and how accessible it will be i.e. cinema, streaming, DVD, TV etc.

Marketing campaigns for promoting the film are crucial and can be the difference between a successful film and an unsuccessful film. Nowadays social media plays a massive part in a film’s marketing campaign, trailers and posters can now be posted on everyday social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Social media generates a much bigger audience and establishes a much wider reach of accessibility to consumers as the distributors can promote their trailers and posters for anybody to see at any point during their use of social media platforms. YouTube also plays a huge part in promoting films due to how easy it is to access trailers as and when and like all the other platforms mentioned above, share with friends and “followers”.

Deadpool

Deadpool is based off of the Marvel Universe comic book character Deadpool who was created by artist/writer Rob Liefield. The film cost over $100Million in marketing and distribution, mainly promoted through social media. Deadpool was very successful at the box office because of its big budget marketing campaign and use of social media in promoting it.

Deadpool was released on the 12^th of February 2016 and was marketed as a Valentine’s film, this was to appeal to a wider target audience by placing it and marketing around this holiday, couples would go to the cinema to see it, this could be seen in one of the official posters advertising the film which used the tagline: “Feel the love Valentine’s day”. Social media is free advertisement for films as posters and other promotions can be posted on Facebook pages and Twitter meaning that users can share and like the post furthering how far the post reaches, by getting cast member Ryan Reynolds to tweet an image of himself in the Deadpool outfit with the hashtag #Deadpool.

Like all movies, it was marketed with several teaser trailers and posters alongside fan made trailers. Ryan Reynolds dominated the posters with near enough all of the official posters starring only him as Deadpool, this could be because he is the main character and the most important, or it could also be supporting his character type of being an arrogant anti-hero.

The film was released by 20^th Century Fox meaning it got a lot more advertising than similar films in the Marvel franchise. Though marketed as a 15 to appeal to a wider target audience, to achieve this certificate violence and language was slightly toned down, however it was overall marketed as being an adult superhero movie.

Deadpool is another example of a comic book character being brought to life on the big screen. Being part of the Marvel Universe, Deadpool manages to make clear links with the X-Men franchise, further expanding to an audience of superhero fans. The 15 certificate rated trailer contains lots of violence and swearing with witty dialogue to get across the theme of comedy as well as action from the first minute of the trailer which helped to make the film more successful as by being a multi-generic film, it appeals to a wider mainstream audience.

My magazine Entertainment follows the generic conventions for a horror magazine by following rules on colour scheme and using obscure fonts and bold titles. I used similar covers to Fangoria as the use of red connotes danger and blood which are typical of the horror genre.

I placed the image on the right side of my page taking up 70% of the front cover, this is so it doesn’t drown out any headlines and is big enough to draw attention to itself from the target audience whilst still maintaining high quality.

I took inspiration from the Sinister 2 poster for my film poster, I really liked the effect they used on one of the boys’ faces that made it appear as if it was blurred and ghostly. I used a similar technique when creating my poster where I copied the image and lowered the saturation to create this ghostly effect. Also the use of the white text as the title stood out to me on the Mama 2 poster so I recreated this idea and instead of typing Eighteen as a word, I wrote it in roman numerals (XVII) as I thought the shorter the title, the more it would draw in the audience like how the Mama 2 title draws in its audience. The Woman in Black 2 poster has a young boy sitting up against a wall with a ghostly image of a woman behind him and a dark room surrounding, I took the concept of having a completely dark background behind my characters due to reviewing the Woman in Black 2 poster as I felt it made the images stand out more.

The magazine and poster are linked as they both have the same character on the front of them, however doing slightly different pose, this is to show that they are both promoting the same product. The reason I used the same model for both my magazine and poster is because she features as the main character within the trailer, this gives audience members a familiar face to identify with. My magazine cover and poster follow the same colour scheme, the colour scheme is dark, this is to connote the horror genre through the blacks, greys and reds, I used a different font on the magazine cover in comparison to the poster because I wanted the magazine to have a professional layout and be clear to read, whereas the poster is targeted at a niche audience so the obscureness of the font may draw in audience members.

The trailer links to the ancillary texts because it shows the character wearing the same costume which is worn within the trailer which has bloodstains on it. This connotes the idea of violence and horror and I wanted this theme to be portrayed in my ancillary texts as it is within the trailer. I wanted to give the ancillary texts a mysterious element by playing around with the lighting and creating shadows and only slightly highlighting parts of the model’s dress and body opposed to her face, this is so the audience don’t get too familiar with her face as within the trailer we try not to reveal too much as to who the final girl actually is.

By linking the ancillary texts with the trailer it has created a synergy. By doing this the advertisement meets a vaster amount of people which helps to expand the target audience.

Entertainment magazine cover

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In terms of marketing the purpose of a film trailer is to sell the film to its audience. Conventionally the trailer introduces the equilibrium of the film’s diegesis, before quickly transitioning to the event of the film, attempts of resolution and identifying key characters of the film (good and evil), displays a variety of different camera shots and typically in a horror trailer the shots and soundtrack start off slower and pick up speed and ramp up the tension as the trailer progresses. In Eighteen the preferred reading we wanted the audience to receive was a chilling, unsettling feel about the film and to be thrilled and on edge throughout. We felt the need to follow generic conventions of the horror genre such as jumpscares as historically these have proven successful, but also wanted to push the boundaries and be unique as we felt this would separate our trailer from others and generate more interest towards our trailer as opposed to just playing it safe. In the trailer for Eighteen there is no correlation between narrative structure within the trailer as it is done in a way that leaves the audience clueless as to who the victims or murderer/killer is.

Eighteen trailer

Don't Breathe trailer

It's incredibly important to include a title within the trailer so the audience know what the film is called, this gives them the information they need to see it in cinemas. Like most conventional horror trailers our title is at the end of the trailer because it’s the last thing about the trailer that is imprinted in their mind, meaning that they can research it. However, not every horror trailer does this, horror film Don’t Breathe has the title at the start of the trailer, which could be seen as direct address to the audience.

Eighteen trailer

The Bye Bye Man trailer

Jumpscares are used within horror trailers to shock the audience and give them a rush of adrenaline whilst watching, this is to give them a taste of the horrors that will be included within the actual film. The jumpscare included in our trailer is placed in a way that would make the audience feel scared as there was a build up of fast pace action followed by a scene of a candle being blown out which then led to a loud noise and a scary face being shown to viewers. The jumpscare in our trailer is at the end of the trailer to leave the audience feeling scared on edge after watching the trailer, although jumpscares can happen at any given point of the trailer, for instance, in The Bye Bye Man trailer, there are jumpscares throughout from start to finish.

Eighteen trailer

It trailer

Typical narrative structure of horror films begins in a bright, positive state of normality and gradually gets darker and scenes tend to get cut faster and action unfolds. In our trailer, the equilibrium at the beginning is of four friends drinking to celebrate one of the characters eighteenth birthday and as the trailer progresses the shots get shorter and features scenes of violence, gore and frightened expressions. An example of a trailer that follows this narrative structure is It, the trailer begins with what looks like two brothers acting normal and hugging and then in the other scene it is a still shot of a group of young boys about to be attacked by a killer clown. Not all horror films follow this structure, an example that shows this would be The Crazies, which starts with apocalyptic scenes and then flashes back to current time and then the audience as the apocalyptic state begins.

Eighteen trailer

Cabin in the Woods trailer

In almost every horror film there is a trend in reoccurring character types which appear within the film and trailers usually identify these character archetypes clearly so that the audience knows who’s who. Our trailer doesn’t give the audience a clear understanding of who exactly the victims or killers are from watching the trailer making it so they are confused, meaning that they will have to watch the film to understand what they are watching. We did this so it would leave audience members wondering about what they’d seen and have to rewatch the trailer to try and piece together more information. Cabin in the Woods gives its audience a clear identification of character types, we can see from watching the trailer that the teenagers are the victims and we are shown scenes of them being attacked.

Eighteen trailer

The Boy trailer

Horror trailers tend to start off with bright, ambient colours in a naturalistic setting and as the scenes progress into the action, they tend to lose saturation becoming darker, this is usually to signify the darkness of the plot taking over the film. In our trailer we followed this structure as we wanted to get across the idea of happiness within the friendship group and create a greater contrast between the happiness and suffering, this was to shock audiences. The Boy follows this theme by starting off outside the mansion in the daylight with a blue sky backdrop to show calmness and equilibrium, later throughout the trailer we see the inside of the mansion and it noticeably darkens to show the darkness within the film.

Eighteen trailer

Annabelle trailer

A camera angle we decided to use quite frequently within our trailer was the Extreme Close Up angle, we do this to make the audience feel uneasy throughout the trailer, for example, one of our ECUs was of one of our characters gasping underwater, this makes the audience member feel like they are in that situation with her. Extreme Close Ups are conventional of the horror genre as this is not a typical way that you would look at somebody so it is uncomfortable for the audience, an example of an ECU being used within a horror film is Annabelle, when it zooms in on the doll with a drop of blood running from her eye, this is to make the audience feel nauseous.

In comparison to real horror trailers our trailer has no dialogue in it and only background noises, one of the background noises we used was a high pitched piano noise which was playing in the tune of “Happy Birthday”, we did this to get across the idea that the film Eighteen is based on someone’s birthday, we wanted to do this so the audience were clear from the trailer, and a rumbling noise to get across the theme of horror as it builds tension throughout the trailer leading to a jumpscare, this technique is used by many professionals when creating a trailer. The pace of the background noises in the trailer gradually picks up pace as the trailer progresses, this is to show how from the equilibrium, the intensity of scenes advances within the film so we displayed this within our trailer. Cabin in the Woods is an example of a horror trailer with lots of dialogue which helps to build the narrative of the film, which is just as effective as a trailer with very little dialogue such as our own if executed properly, whereas Alien is a trailer with no dialogue which was successful.

In terms of professionalism and genre conventions, I believe that Eighteen fits horror genre conventions well and considering we had no budget and the time we had to construct the trailer I think that Eighteen is considerably professional in the sense of the technologies and equipment used. In terms of being professional we used a GoPro for underwater scenes, filmed the rest on a DSLR video camera and edited on Adobe Premiere Pro on a Mac. An instance in which our trailer met conventions of the horror genre would be our use of Special FX make up to create realistic wounds.

Eighteen Film Poster

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?

Eighteen Trailer