Our Poster

Our posters Unique Selling Point (USP) was the main character (Claire). This worked well as the target audience being boys and girls aged 15-25 can relate. The girls want to be her. The boys want her. So it made sense to have her as the main draw to the film. The poster doesn't give away to much of the story - keeping people intrigued. We used reds and pinks to denote danger temptation and the femininity that comes with the character. Obviously the reds work well for the horror genre as it signifies blood as well. The colours are also striking. Obviously posters are static unlike the actual trailer or film so they have to be eye catching. People do not tend to stop and study a poster, so you only have a few seconds to make an impression.






This poster was more of a teaser poster. We used a technique similar to the marketing campaign for the recent Batman film, "The Dark Knight", where at first, teaser posters giving clues about the storyline were shown, then when the trailer and other marketing techniques were issued, other posters were put out, these ones based on sole characters, like our poster above. We "graffitied" the poster, adding words and letters to the boys "names" and putting "tape" over their faces, also, showing the girl as a silhouette. This way, we don't know who any of the characters are right away, and giving the audience some intrigue so they are more interested in the other poster/s and trailer when they come out. The graffiti aspect also gives a teenage feel, hopefully connecting more with our target audience.

Target Audience

Our target audience is generally both Males and Females around 15 to 25. We aimed our trailer/ film towards a younger age group as we thought they were more likely to go to the cinema and to actually see a horror film. Horror films released recently (or coming soon) have used 'stars' that can be associated with and attract a younger audience. For example Jennifer's Body starred Megan Fox and Kyle Gallner-who also starred in The Haunting In Connecticut. The remake of Nightmare On Elm Street also stars Kyle Gallner and Kellan Luts-who stars in the twilight saga; a teen favorite. As the film we wanted to make was a similar to the films mentioned, we felt it best to target the right people.

Obviously we could not have real stars in our trailer but we chose to use a younger cast- allowing the audience to connect with the trailer, therefore increasing the chance that they will see the full length film later on. We also based our idea within a 'high school' again forming a bridge between the audience and the film.

We passed out some questionnaires to find out what our audience expected to see within a trailer- not just horror trailers, just trailers in general to help us put together an idea of what it was we wanted to produce.

Trailers-Questionnaire 1


Is there anything in particular that would catch your attention when watching a good trailer?

I need a strong idea to catch my attention in the first few seconds... you know how it is when you meet someone new, you kind of make up your mind about them with the first hand shake!

Where would you be most likely to see a film trailer? For example in the cinema, online and so on.

At the moment it is probably a bit of everything, but in order: on-line (my computer opens on the Apple homepage which has a good trailer section) followed by cinema, DVD, and TV.

How long would you expect a typical trailer to last?

I think it has to do the business in about a minute, as I don't want to learn too much about the film, just enough to draw me in. Want all the twists in the plot to be a surprise, so please don't feed me a summary of the film as some do, which answers

How much of a films storyline would you expect to see in a trailer?

N/A


What do you expect to see when watching the trailer for a new ‘horror’ film?

probably somebody scared... but what is the cause?


Trailers - Questionnaire 2

Is there anything in particular that would catch your attention when watching a good trailer?

Quite a difficult question to identify what makes a good trailer – but I expect that anything especially funny, exciting or noteworthy would catch my attention.

Where would you be most likely to see a film trailer? For example in the cinema, online and so on.

My job is to programme a small cinema so I often look online at trailers. If this was not my job, I expect that if I was making a decision about what to go and see and had online access, I would take a look at trailers as well synopses. The other location where I am most likely to see a film trailer is at the cinema.

How long would you expect a typical trailer to last?

2 minutes 30 seconds max


How much of a films storyline would you expect to see in a trailer?

I would expect the trailer to tell the story of the film in abbreviated form, in a 3 act structure similar to a feature length film, but without giving away the ending or including any ‘spoilers’.


What do you expect to see when watching the trailer for a new ‘horror’ film?

Indication of what will cause horror / terror to audience and strong sense of menace. Obviously this film genre incorporates a number of sub-genres and repeated themes such as vampire themes, slasher themes, zombie themes, demonic possession, evil children, haunted houses, cannibalism etc.

Once our trailer was complete we uploaded it to youtube ;



We then posted the link to facebook, twitter and other social networking sites in order for a wide range of people to watch our trailer. We left it for a couple of months so we could see who had been watching our film over a period of time.



This let us see which link our audience had followed, which was help full as we can determine which site/link worked out better for marketing. We can see from the list that facebook was the popular. We also know that the age group for facebook is quite young.



From this image we can see the age bracket that has been watching our trailer. We can see that the majority of our audience is female, and that the largest age bracket is 18-24. With Some people watching aged 13-17 and the smallest group being age 25-34. This was really useful as it reinforces the fact that we are hitting our target audience.

Production Images

Music In Trailers

We chose to use a "rock" song in the background of our trailer as many trailers now do the same thing, especially in horror film trailers and for films aimed at teens and young adults (our target audience), as a rock or alternative song can emphasise the mood or certain aspects of the genre in the film and make them more appealing to the audience. The effect of using a popular rock song in a trailer can entirely change a persons mind about a film.

In the Gamer (2009) trailer, Lionsgate used the song "Sweet Dreams", the 80's Eurythmics song, covered by Marilyn Manson, which had been released in 1995 on the "Smells Like Children" album. The song was also featured in the 1999 film House On Haunted Hill. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3zcdADFYzE

The Season Of The Witch (2010), from Atlas Entertainment, also uses Marilyn Manson music, "The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLoKm_vUsFY

Daybreakers (2009),used the method as Gamer, using the Placebo cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" in the trailer for the film, also by Lionsgate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayYiMygqlfo

The Crazies (2010), from Overture Films, did the same thing, this time using a more alternative song, R.E.M's "Mad World". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEMZwQulT1Q&feature=fvw

The trailers use these popular songs to emphasise the plot and mirror the feelings the song evokes in the listener to the film itself. The subjects in the songs can be interpreted to have similar themes to the films themselves. Even if only a few lines from the song do this, the trailer simply makes the into louder, so the audience will recognise the song, then use the rest of the song as background music, until the appropriate lines appear, with the similar themes, usually at the end of the trailer as the fast paced montage of images flash by.

I think the use of these songs is very clever. Fans of the music could be entirely turned around on the film after hearing the song on the trailer. I believe the choice of music can gain enthusiasm and audience members. If given the choice, we would have chosen to use a similar approach to our background music. Instead, we used the Sound Track Pro program and found a rock song that fit in with the action and mood of our trailer. We found that the music pulled all the parts of the trailer together and united it and also gave it a bit more of a "Wow" factor.

Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_bIKkKgZrU

Film Trailer - The Act Of Obsession

Posters

A lot of the posters use red coloring. Obviously this is a good way to show they are designed for a horror films. Red has connotations of danger, blood, temptation , anger and passion, so when we make our own poster, it would be a good idea to use a lot of shades of red as temptation and passion and the actions they inspire are really the main ideas for a our film. For the films that have female leads, (or strong characters) the poster seems to focus on close ups of the face. Signifying the fact they are the object of focus for the films. Their reactions make the film, so again this would fit in really well with our film poster as our female is the reason for the murders/ killings. However most of the faces are quite scary, for example screaming, which signifies they are a horror but I think our poster should be more subtle, as don't we want to give away the idea for the film straight away.