Production diary

Individual idea

PLOT:

Four teenage friends decide to take a road trip to an abandoned house after being told its supposedly haunted, joking around they all go into the house and taking a look round, after deciding it’s all just a myth the teens set up camp in the nearby woods. Later that night they hear music coming from the house kind of like a music box but louder. Curious, Jess and Max go to see what is going on but Ashley and James stay at the tent telling them they shouldn’t go there. When Jess and Max arrive at the house, they see a light on in one of the upstairs rooms now a bit scared Jess says they should go back to the tent but Max is already on his way into the house. Jess calls after him but almost in a trance listening to the music he carries on walking.

Back at the tent Ashley and James hear a girls scream, running to the house to see what has happened they find Jess in the house screaming and crying with blood on her hands, asking her what happened she points behind them where Max is lying on the floor in the pool of blood. Before the three teens can do anything else, the old front door slams shut and there is no escape. It then becomes a fight for survival as Jess, James and Ashely fight against the horrors that are hidden within the house.

 CHARACTERS: 

Jess, 19

Max, 19

Ashley, 18

James, 18

SETTING:

Old abandoned house

Woods

Car

Impact of Research

The Resident- Trailer Analysis

Summary-

When a young doctor suspects she may not be alone in her new Brooklyn loft, she learns that her landlord has formed a frightening obsession with her.


Plot-
'In New York, Dr.Juliet Bliss Devereau of the Brooklyn General Hospital has ended her relationship with her boyfriend Jack and is seeking an apartment in Brooklyn to live alone. She finds a bargain in an old bargain in an old apartment building owned by the handsome and lonely Max and one night she misinterprets his signals and dates him. However, she concludes that it is too soon to have a love affair... bit is that really the end of it?'

Tagline- 

‘She Thought She Was Living Alone’ 


Trailer-

Camera work-

-Panning shots at the beginning of the trailer help to set the scene.

-Close-up shots- focusses on expression (fear)

-The length of the clips at first are quite long then gradually get quicker (in what seems to be close to chronological order) which build up tension as the trailer progresses. 

Sound-

Music starts off subtle but creepy with a constant underlying repetitive beat and starts to build up as the trailer progresses, one minute in the music stops and there is just dialogue it then changes to more dramatic sound effects and starts to build further tension.

There is a fair amount of dialogue in the trailer which adds context to the trailer and helps to let the audience know what's happening. 

Editing-

Titles-

-HAMMER horror production- displayed on screen in classic red logo which is cross flashed with ‘Image entertainment’

-Zooms out then in on the titles which read ‘This year’ ‘fear’ ‘comes’ ‘home’
-Each clip fades in and out to a black screen which starts to get quicker as the trailer progresses which again adds tension and builds up adrenalin.

Preliminary trailer

Grave Encounters trailer-





Our recreation-





For our preliminary task we recreated the horror trailer 'Grave Encounters' in a short space of time to get initial practise at using softwares such as premiere pro.

Images for Recces and Location Scouting

Evaluation question 2

Film Distribution-

The film distributor is responsible for the whole marketing of the film which is usually different company to the production company. This role is very Important to financing a film as they need to make cost effective ways of marketing their product.

There are many methods and techniques in which they use to advertise their film; these promotional techniques include many advertisements whether it’s an outdoor ad such as billboard or poster, tv and cinema ad such as trailers and teaser trailers and web ads via websites and social media; all these are methods which help to vastly promote their film across a wide area to a lot of audiences.

However different marketing is used depending on the type of potential audience.
For example, if the target audience is younger the style of advertising is more likely to be digital or promoted via social media as the majority of teens are known to be active users of social media so this would be an effective way of promoting their film.

The value of audience research is extremely important to distribution companies when it comes to developing their campaign, as this gives distributors the chance to see what their target audience likes and dislikes.

An example of a recent film who used a lot of promotional techniques is…

Fantastic beasts and where to find them.

The fantastic beasts film was a very successful movie based on the short book written by J.K. Rowling a few years ago but until now was never a major competitor. The textbook is referenced briefly in one of the Harry Potter books but now, though, there’s been an entire film dedicated to the story. Although fantastic beasts is not a follow up film to harry potter it is still written within J.K Rowling’s Wizarding world, meaning that there is already a massive fan base waiting for the film. This can be both a positive and negative thing the reasons being that the expectations will be extremely high as the original harry potter films were such a success and the fans of the movies are very dedicated and will expect nothing less than to exceed their expectations. However, this could also be a positive as it means the target audience is already identified and a fan base is already existing which gives distributors a massive head start when it comes to promoting the film.

The films main character Newt Scamander is played by the very well-known and current actor ‘Eddie Redmayne’, by having well known actors and actresses in films this instantly makes the consumers want to watch it and will already have a prejudgment of what it will be like depending on their view on that particular actor or actress.


Poster releases-

To begin with overall there were three main posters realised to audiences, the first teaser trailer to be released showed the main character (Eddie Redmayne) standing in a grand building (what could be a train station) with the title at the bottom and a golden colour across the whole poster, although this doesn’t give much away the audience was introduced to the main character and the first ‘Magical’ glimpse of the wizarding world.

The second poster again just shows Eddie Redmayne but this time in a new location adding more context and can start to get the audience guessing, this poster also features ‘J.K Rowling invites you to a new era of the wizarding world’ this now makes previous Harry Potter fans aware of the film and can start hyping up the return of the wizarding world. The second poster also includes the directors name which can again give the audience preconceptions of what the film will be like. The third poster was a special release at San Diego Comic-Con showing Scamander in the middle as well as introducing new characters around him. The poster has mid-century modern design to it, making it look like the kind of stained-glass windows you’d see in a major city’s railroad station. That helps set the time period of the story and the actual setting can be gathered by the way the American flag is weaved into some of the designs at the top.

By doing these three poster releases it created build up and excitement towards the film, and kept the audience interested.

Finally, the last release of posters were character posters, which gave fans the chance to see in more detail the characters to expect and given some context about them including each of their names. All the characters are surrounded by different objects that could hint at clues to the plot which creates lots of excitement for the audience and can get them interacting with the film already.










Trailer releases-

In total there was 4 trailers released to the public this included...

The first teaser trailer… Basic plot and date is given and we are introduced to the film

Second teaser trailer... Slightly more context visually but not much is expanded on the plot
https://youtu.be/ViuDsy7yb8M

First Main trailer… Released at comic con
https://youtu.be/YdgQj7xcDJo

Final Main trailer...Included a lot more context and unseen footage which keeps the audiences interested.

Other Promotion Techniques Used-

Publicity and the media-

Fantastic Beasts appeared on several film magazine covers which can have a huge impact on promotion, as the magazine is aimed at film lovers they are hitting there target audience and getting even more awareness for their film. They also partook in many interview, including J.K Rowling herself.

Comic-con-

By going to events such as comic-con this created interactive experiences with consumers, which creates a more engaging and intimate experience for the audience. This is a great marketing strategy as they can partake in interviews, meet and greets and exclusive information which really helps to promote the film.

Social Media-
Distributors set up an interactive website for the film where fans could get more information about the film, here they can can see gallery images, visit the shop and interact with exclusive features.

http://www.fantasticbeasts.co.uk/gallery.php

The website also has links to all their social media's where fans can keep up to date with the happenings with the film.
Overall, the fantastic beasts film distributors used lots of promotional techniques to market their film, to the right target audience and to as wide of an audience as possible. The distribution had a very steady process and constantly kept fans up to date by revealing more and more information on what to expect each time. The overall consistency of the design features was very continuous and had many recurring features that soon become iconic and noticeable to fans.