Editing

We used the Final Cut editing software to edit our trailer. We also used the Soundtrack Pro software to get the backing music for our trailer, as well as the sound effects used, such as the wolves howling over the logo, the sharp "whoosh" noises, and the "hit" noise n the bathroom scene.

To create our film studio logo for our company, "Cecill-Darcy Entertainment", we used a 3-D text project and chose what we wanted to be our logo. We felt this gave our trailer a more professional look, as did the "wolf howling sound", our equivalent of the MGM logo.

On our first shot, in the hallway, the screen fades to black frequently and a heartbeat sound is heard over the void. To do this, we added a dip to colour, in this case black, at frequent intervals. We placed single heartbeat sounds, from Soundtrack Pro at these intervals, and slowed the speed of the sound, also adding the gain to +7. We used a backing track on this shot also, which we also slowed down to 95. We slowed the whole shot down to fit in with the sounds and added cross fades to the dip to colours so that they faded more gently.

We used the "Bad Film" effect on allot of our shots. When we used "Bad Film", we left the shots focused, but added scratches, dust, seed, allot of mix, saturation and jitter. We didn't use any hairs, and had no frequency of change. We felt the shaky, almost desaturated look added a horror element and helped the shots look bleaker and scarier.

In some scenes, we also used a vignette. We felt that this added a darkness to the shots that wasn't immediately defined as a vignette as the shots we used them on were very brief and we changed the settings so they weren't as noticeable. We set the mix to 100% and the saturation, size, falloff and darken to 50%.

In our "picture" shots, we captured stills (freeze frames) of our scenes and coloured them to sepia in the video filters and image control option, adding the camera sound over the top. Wee felt this made the trailer look very voyeuristic, which fit with our storyline, and was a good way to convey the obsession.

In the "Captured" scene where we see a victim bound, we used dip to colours again, but made them dark red in this shot to signify the danger.

We edited allot of our sounds also, changing the speed in some and adding pitch reverberation and gain, to make them sound slower, lower and generally scarier.

Other Marketing Techniques

When marketing a film , trailers and posters are not the only way of getting your film 'out there'. Obviously as our trailer is not for a real film we cannot actually market it but if we could these are some of the options we could consider.

Merchandise - plays a big role in the marketing of films. For example we could sell t shirts, mugs, and hats all bearing the films tag line 'you'd kill to have her'.

Media Advertising - posters do not only appear in the cinema. We could also have posters in bus stops and on the sides of double Decker buses. Smaller posters could appear inside magazine or even fill a whole page in a magazine. We could also play a shorter version of our trailer on the television, which also allows us to target the right audience depending on which programmes it would play between.

Premiers - Most films have premiers which creates hype about the film. In most cases the press will be there to run the story of the 'new big hit' allowing more advertisement for the film.

Festivals - Festivals allows large crowds of people who may not usually see your film to experience it. Festivals are really helpful for low budget films that find marketing there film difficult. It also allows opportunities for winning awards for your work.

Word Of Mouth - This is uncontrollable but it can work out really well. It simply means people discussing your film/trailer/poster, and hopefully recommending it to other people allowing a wider audience for the film.

Magazine - The Act Of Obsession

Magazines

We can see from the magazine covers, that no matter what the genre the main character for the chosen film is the USP for the magazine. They are the only image, and they are eye catching.

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