Film Trailers

Film Trailer Evaluation

 

Purpose:

The film trailer that my group and me made was called ‘After Hours’.  We decided to make the genre of the film horror as we had a lot of ideas for it. The basic story line is about a girl who has been killed in her school by someone or something. The rest of the students start experiencing strange events happening in the school building and are trying to find out the rest of the story of the murder.

 

Audience:

The target audience for our film is 15+ as it has some mild gore and a lot of suspense. Also there are a few scenes with some strong language.

 

Representation issues:

I think our trailer showed mostly negative messages as we used screams and shocking scenes but some messages you could say were positive as the voice over mentioned ‘hope’ in the trailer as if the actress is going to survive.

Our film included both boys and girls because the actor was female and the voice over was male so it appealed to both target audiences.

We didn’t have any ethnic groups in our film as we stuck with the actors from our group for the film.

Our music included suspense and a sense of mystery. It sounded creepy and slow as well which went really well with our horror trailer. Also it went throughout the whole film and the pace was slow and towards the end it got faster which went really well with parts of the scenes.

The locations of the film was very appropriate as the story line was about a girl killed in her school so all of the shots are within the school grounds and the actors had their school uniform on as if they were being school students. We thought the uniforms connoted that they were young and vulnerable and they had bland colours but it didn’t really matter, as the whole film was black and white.

The language used in the trailer is appropriate for any audience; however, the actual film has some strong language, that’s why decided to have it as a 15.

The video looked realistic for the genre because it featured shocking scenes that included creeping about, running, screaming in most of the film, there was only two screams, at the start and in the ending scene. We used quite a bit of running as it connoted being chased after or being frightened.

Technical Issues:

The levels of music weren’t too loud or quiet but at times when the voice over spoke we lowered the volume. At the start the first voice over is a bit loud but for the rest of the film it’s just about right.

In part of the film we cut out my voice in one of the scenes. I only said ’hello’ but it made the scene really affective because it suggested that something or someone was there and I was calling out to feel brave and try and be aware of what it was, although without it, it still sounds good.

I think the camera work worked really well in all the scenes; especially in one of the scenes where there’s 2 people running up the stairs in the middle of the trailer and at the end where the main character get dragged into a room because it shows what part of how the girl gets caught by her murderer and creates tension so that you think what happens next but then obviously the trailer ends which I feel creates a good cliff hanger.

The trailer had quite a lot of variety to keep the audience interested as all the scenes were in different rooms/places of the school and we used interesting parts right at the start of the film with newspaper headlines of ‘girl murdered’.

We used some transitions in our trailer which were fade in fade out which made the scenes gently fade into the next one which makes the film gives it a sense of mystery as it doesn’t want to show all of the scene so it fades slowly to the next. We also made the film have an aged look to make it seem eerie. Some of the scenes go really well with the music like at the end as the title of the film appears with the date of the release; the music gets calmer and fades down.

The title was affective because it was quite large and bold; the text was also jagged and bloody to give it that scary affect.

 

Conventions/Narrative:

What I think was typical of this genre:

-The eerie music

-Screaming

-Running

-Shaking

-Shocks

 

In a professional product I think it would have features like the list above, which was from our trailer.

A professional product would have more of an advantage than us as they would have the right programs to use for special effects and they would also have professional actors and a range of actors to choose from. They also have money to buy equipment for the sets/scenes etc.

Our film had heroes, who were the students; the villain was the person/creature that killed the girl. The equilibrium was people finding out about the murder. The disruption was the students noticing weird things happening in the school and the resolution was when they found out why these things were happening and the killer of the girl.

I would regard our film as multi-strand as they’re not just trying to find out who killed the girl but they’re trying to find out why strange things are happening.

 

 

Own Performance/Self Evaluation:

 

Throughout making the film I learnt how to add music/sound to the video and how to use the cam recorder.

Our strengths I think was the music we used as every part of it went really well with the scenes. Also I think the acting was good and certain scenes with the camera angles and the shocking parts went really well together.

The weaknesses of the trailer were the parts when there was screaming as the audience found them too loud. I would also have made the voice over a bit more as it seemed a bit repetitive and should have used some sound clips from the film itself.

I think I was a good team member as I was the one who provided the screaming and most of the acting. Also I came up with some of the ideas for most of the scenes.

I was prepared to listen to my other members opinion because that then gave us all more ideas what to do and then came up with the best one.

 

 

Audience Feedback:

Positive

How the scene wit the actor’s eye opens. It was an extreme close up and had a sense of panic.

The choice of music was excellent.

Good use of effects, black and white, ghost trails etc.

Improvements

Make the screaming quieter.

Voice over should be less repetitive.                

Laws/Controls.

We have no problem with OFCOM, as none of the music we included was copy write.