The Enthrallment Trailer

Post Production Essay Consider the development of your skills in using Post Production across the 2 years and the effect or impact this has had on your creativity/cultural expectations

Post production is the evaluation of the product and the assessment of the skills that were either had by the student before production or developed through the production process and then used to put together the materials acquired to form a final product. Post production is much more thorough and expansive as many more hardware technologies and software programmes were used to create the finished products. This is because I was creating a magazine FC, poster, and film trailer. During filming it is important to follow a set shot list and shot schedule to ensure that everything that is needed to make a cohesive trailer with good continuity is created. However there is an element experimentation that is needed to create something creative and unique that will capture my audience more. This is why we decided to include the use of low tracking shots to create a more dynamic horror trailer which gave a creative twist which we had not initially planned for. This also ties into the aesthetics of the front cover, trailer, and poster. I had to experiment with the colour that we were going to use essentially for our house style in A2 and ensure that it is consistent in all 3 products.

My preliminary task was used as a way of developing and displaying my early photoshop and indesign skills. This was a critical period in my basic knowledge and initial use of skills that would underpin my work for the two years. During this time i wasn’t able to create something hyper realistic as i simply didn’t have the skills to create anything of such high quality. However this is a time period and task that had the highest level of experimentation as the criteria was broad enough that I could really be creative and see what would work for a college magazine.

Before the preliminary task I had no skills on photoshop. So during this time I learned how to remove green screen, layer photos, crop images, etc. Once again it wasn’t possible to create at this point a product with hyper reality as I didn’t have such developed skills but it was the skills I learned here that underpinned the aesthetic look for my Music Magazine.

I used two different programmes from my AS preliminary task and my A2 horror trailer. Despite this there were a number of skills that I learned early on and developed through the year and used to create a good A2 trailer. For example learning about house styles for magazines and how to present them is a skill that i had to use throughout my trailer. I chose a set colour palette that i would use to convey the same wanted mood through out the trailer and used colour grading and editing to change the hue of most to all of the shots and title slates in the trailer to. This created an altogether more cohesive and well rounded product that on face value looked like the desired product and similar to real life examples. So while I didn’t have much skills or experience at the beginning of the two years I used a lot of experimenting to create my product and through the use of the skills that I learned I created an aesthetically pleasing product. So this meant simply putting a filter over an image or sequence and seeing if that would work as i had previously not learned if it would work or not and then using the one that turned out the best.

In conclusion my understanding of post production skills has helped me create products much faster as i have consolidated and understood my work and what works. However a down side of this could be that i’m less likely to experiment as much and be as creative as i have become used to a certain way of doing things and following set conventions. On the flip side it could also be said that the better skills will allow me to make a better application of the creativity that i have and produce an all around better product.

Research and Planning Essay Response

At the beginning of Year 12 I had to complete an AS Preliminary Task for creating a college magazine. The goal of this exercise was to simply display that i had the skills to create a magazine by following the basic conventions of a magazine. This exercise was in no way creative as nothing new was created, as a creator I simply copied something that already existed to prove to a moderator that i had the skills necessary to create a music magazine. During this period i had only just started to learn how to use the software needed to create the music magazine so my means of channelling my creativity weren’t fully optimised. This meant that my creativity was greatly limited by my lack of skill.

When making the AS media music magazine it was obvious that for the research side of things we would have to look at a wide variety of music magazines. Seeing as i was looking to make a hip-hop magazine I had to look at a number of other hip-hop magazines to see how the basic conventions were used and to understand the conventions that are specific to that genre. This  was very important as it helped my magazine’s stylistic choices when it came to things such as house style or colour or position of the masthead. It was this understanding that i gained from looking at the many examples that helped me understanding why you would choose black instead of red for text colour for example for body text. The level of knowledge gained from research allowed for me to develop my magazine creating skills.

When creating my A2 media film trailer there were a number of things that had to be factored in to Research and Planning. For example to create a horror trailer I first needed to know a great deal about the genre. This is why I did Horror genre research that allowed me to understand what went into the editing, sound, mis-en-scene, etc of a horror film.  I then applied this knowledge by looking at a number of iconic horror characters and seeing how this knowledge applied to each one of them in their respective films. It was this information that allowed me to create a suitable treatment for the horror trailer. This treatment was filled with many of the codes and conventions when mentioning key scenes of the film, making fir a better piece of production that would cater to fans.

My planning skills have developed greatly from the production of my music magazine to the production of my horror trailer. This is likely because my research skills have developed more which underpins the planning process. With greater knowledge of the conventions that I need to include and each of their purposes I can plan a better final product. This may for example be the rule of thirds when creating a front cover and that the purpose is to position different aspects of the magazine at the different points that the eye would go to first. More research was done in horror audience research in A2 and I was able to create an even more appealing horror magazine as we had asked actual people from our demographic what features they liked and included them in the appropriate parts of the magazine taking into account the already learnt information on the rule of thirds.

As a post modern media producer it is very difficult or almost impossible to come up with something original. However this doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible to be creative in this era. You can make use of already existing text and bring them together to create something new. This is known as intertextuality. It’s the synthesis of something new from the reworking and remodelling of the pre-existing. 

Creativity Notes

Creativity is the synthesis of the new and the reworking and remodelling of the old. Creativity is often thought to be only the creation of completely new ideas, however this isn’t the case. It is taking the inspiration from past work and creating something with it. Creativity is often the product of a person simply expressing themselves.

Most people believe that everyone is born with an innate creativeness, this creativity is explored through childhood and is thought to be the most vivid and expressive at this point in the average person’s life. This may be due to the lack of knowledge that that individual has at that time in their life so they explore all the possibilities and unanswered questions. As a person grows older some people believe that the creativity is lost, this may be due to them gaining knowledge. Oppositionally some people believe that you never lose the creativity but you’re socially conditioned to suppress it.

Technology in the Post Modern era has brought about even more creativity in the everyday person. It has becoming increasingly easier to express yourself with many media and platforms to show your creativity. Through this people have been more exposed the creativity from others making almost everywhere you look on the internet using your technology of choice a source of inspiration to draw from, remodel and create something of their own.

Copying another piece of work isn’t creative at all. An example of this was last year during the AS magazine coursework we had to create a preliminary task magazine. We didn’t attempt to be creative at all as we simply copied magazines to understand the structure and layout of a magazine front cover and content page.

Intertextuality can be described as the way in which existing text can influence the creation of new text. One example would be how alien is a essentially when boiled down ‘Jaws in space’. It takes heavy inspiration from the Jaws movie and many sci fi thrillers and has through the use of intertextuality created something new. A horror film.

Creativity and Originality aren’t the same thing. You don’t have to be original in order to be creative. Being creative is making something that didn’t’ exist before.

Evaluate Your own Trailer and other media text in relation to Audience

The content of media text and the way that it is presented to an audience can have different effects. There are some ways in which the text can be handled or understood by an audience in an active way or opposing in a passive way.

One model of how media text affects an audience in the hypodermic needle model. Like the name suggests the audience is effected in a passive way in which they aren’t able to accept or interpret the text as their own but instead the message is injected into the mind of the audience by powerful syringe-like media.

Another theory is reception theory. This is the idea that the text is coded by the producer and is meant to be decoded by the audience. This is thought to be an active way in which the audience receives text as they are meant to come to their own conclusion and understanding of the text presented to them. There are three different ways that they can decode the text. They can decode it in the dominant or preferred manner. This is when the audience understands the text the way that the director and producer wanted it to be decoded almost the same way that it was coded. Another way is the negotiated decoding in which the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in order to create a better or more widely accepted decoding of the text for social and political reasons. The final decoding is oppositional in which the dominant coding is recognised but rejected altogether for cultural or political reason. In our trailer we coded a subtext into the deaths of the teenagers to give a moralist take on their rebellious actions and how they would be punished for them. It’s likely that the audience decodes our trailer in a dominant or preferred way as the slasher genre is known for its standing on teenage stock characters and how they are killed for their actions

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The Catharsis theory states that by watching certain types of media a person loses the urge to carry out or imitate such actions. For example are person may find comfort in watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as they don’t feel that they would need to go out and do it themselves. They gain emotional release from seeing violence. In our trailer way include some scenes of violence which to our audience may be important in their choice to watch the full film as it would cleanse or purge their desire for violence of their own. It’s in this belief that horror films are somewhat therapeutic and are important in their ability to make people less aggressive as watching violence is a way of releasing those emotions.

Representation Essay

People are represented in different ways through characters in the media. Horror texts have a different ways of representing groups of people. Each character stands for a group of people and the way they act, dress, the way they’re viewed from the perspective of the audience add to a representation of that group of people.

One example would be how children are represented in horror films. They are often the subject of some sort of possession. This is meant to represent the way in which the children are about to or are going into puberty and in this time they are meant become uncontrollable ‘demons’. They lose their innocence but not due to their own will but due to factors that they have no control over. Examples of this would be The Exorcist. Other examples of possession come in movies such as Evil Dead where teenagers stay in a cabin in the woods. In this case they are doing drugs, drinking, engaging in sexual activities when one of them becomes possessed.

Humans can also often be represented almost quite literally (especially in horror films) as monsters. This is to represent the monster within. This can be done through a contrast of monsters and humans. A usually scary monster such as a zombie can be humanised and be made to have feelings and be denoted as relatable to the audience, making them the good guy. When opposed with humans that are trying to destroy the monster the audience then start s to question who the ‘monster’ really is. The humans then become the monster of that film. An example of this would be Warm bodies. There are other examples of the monster within. Psycho is a classic example in which a man who would seem to have been a normal member of society goes crazy and becomes a brutal murderer. He as an upbringing that causes him to lose control when his mother passes away. This representation of this character is to represent the monster within all of us and that this monster could be within any of us and that the person next to you could end up being this psychotic killer.

Often in horror text women are portrayed in a misogynistic way. They are represented as more of a sexual object for the viewer’s pleasure than as a character in the story. The way they are filmed is known as the male gaze.  They are objectified and filmed in the way hat men would want to view a sexualised female. On the flip side there is binary opposition with the feminist version of this known as the female gaze which is essentially the same thing but a sexualised voyeuristic view of men to cater to female viewers. The trailer that I was working on did not make use of these representations of characters as we focused mainly on the final girl. The final girl is an innocent virgin character and so the male gaze would be very inappropriate for her.

Stock characters in slashers (The genre of our trailer) are meant to conform to teen stereotypes. The classic roster of stock characters includes the fool, nerd, jock, virgin (final girl), and the slut. These characters minus the final girl all engage in some sort of sexual act or drugs. These character’s sins lead to punishment by some sort of divine character that has unopposable power. The only character in the film with the power to oppose the antagonist is the final girl who uses a phallic object of her own to fight back. Our trailer shows other characters that have ‘sinned’ being punished for their actions and the only character that survives is the final girl.

Narrative Essay

Narrative Essay

A narrative is a story that can be in the form of tv, film, song etc. A narrative tells of a fictional or non fictional chain of events. The narrative code is the way in which the film maker chooses to present the story or chain of events to the audience in an interesting way. A non-linear narrative is a narrative in which the story isn’t presented in a step by step or chronological fashion. An example of this would be Pulp Fiction. Linear is different as the chain of events are shown in a smooth chronological fashion.

Todorov argued that the basis of every narrative followed a specific structure. Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, and Resolution. The equilibrium is the initial point in the story, it gives a brief summary of all points past and sets the scene for the narrative. The disequilibrium is when the peace is disrupted by a force, often the antagonist directly. The resolution is the point at which the issue faced in the disequilibrium is resolved and the initial peace in the equilibrium is re-established. 

Propp decided that there were few musts that each narrative needed to have. This would be the villain that causes an issue that needs resolution;  A hero (usually male) who is the main protagonist and eventually brings the story back to equilibrium; The donor who gives the hero something important that helps them reach the resolution; The helper who by definition helps the hero; the princess who needs to be saved by the hero often during the climax; and the false hero who is thought to be good throughout the story but turns out to be bad near the end of the narrative.

Barthes proposed the enigma code. An element of the story is introduced but not explained. This often happens at the beginning of the narrative and a great deal of the story is spent trying to solve the mystery. Elements of the story are held back from the audience to keep them guessing and interested in the goings on of the story. A good example of this is detective story genre.

Post Modern Horror

Horror Trailer Concept

Teaser Trailer Structure

The teaser trailer for a film should follow the 3 act structure.
Act 1: Equilibrium
Act 2: The disruption is introduced
Act 3: Fast editing of the stock scenes that are typical of a horror film

In the first act of the trailer the one or two of the characters are introduced and the tone of the film is set. This can be done through the actual location being shown. Obviously a location such as an abandoned warehouse or a graveyard would be good for a horror film. Lowkey lighting is very important for setting an scary and dark setting. Another way of setting a tense tone to the trailer is sound.

The second act of a trailer should introduce the disruption. This can often be through small glimpses of the antagonist but it's important that the antagonist isn't fully shown or they aren't scary to the audience as they already have information on the antagonist or atleast their appearance.

Act 3 should be the longest as it is meant to contain the many different stock scenes that can be expected in a horror. It is the longest part and becomes faster paced as the trailer approaches it's climax. The trailer may uses techniques such as strobes (which weren't present in my summer work) to create this fast paced tempo until there is a sudden jump scare or the trailer cuts to black and the last title slates fade in.

Question 1b: Examine genre theories and how they apply to your Horror coursework trailer

Rick Altman suggested that there were three ways to look at the concept of genre. There was a semantic view, a syntactic view and a pragmatic view. The semantic is looking at the basic or key elements that make up or identify a piece of work as its genre. For example the costume, props and setting used. For example in a Slasher horror there would have to be use of a face mask, a knife (phallic object) and it would occur under low-key lighting. All of these conventions are present in our trailer as to denote it as a Slasher horror, however we challenged one of the key aspects of low-key lighting by shooting parts of the trailer in broad daylight despite this the trailer is still easily recognizable as a Slasher horror

Neale suggested that a film needs to have conventions of a genre so that it is recognizable to the audience that have paid money to see a film of said genre, that’s why in our trailer we have made sure that in our Slasher sub-genre horror trailer the antagonist carries iconic props such as the phallic knife and mask. He also states that to avoid the film being repetitive or predictable there needs to be innovation. Something new needs to be added so that when people go to see the expected genre of film they aren’t bored from seeing the same thing that they’ve seen a number of times already. Our trailer innovates in a way that is also relevant to teenagers as much of the trailer is denoted in the protagonist’s social media video’s which isn’t typical of the slasher genre but adds a new twist to it. This also takes from the found footage sub-genre of horror films.

Metz believed that a genre went through a number of phases, the Experimental stage, and Classic stage. Parody stage, and Deconstruction stage. The Experimental stage being when the codes and conventions that are associated with the genre are still being established and figured out. The Classic stage being when the conventions of the genre have been set and are becoming idealized and iconic. The parody stage is when the conventions of the genre have been very iconic and recognized by a wide range of people or a large audience. This means that the tropes that are being parodied can be understood by most people that watch these films. The deconstruction stage being when the genre starts to evolve and merge with other genres to create something new that is less predictable and more entertaining to the fans of a genre that have watched similar films for a long time but are looking for a new angle to the identifiable genre of film.

Burton argues that a particular genre will have a number of key elements and conventions that are recognizable of that genre. For example for the slasher horror film that we made over summer we made use of stock characters, stock situations, protagonists, antagonists, icons, etc. Our stock characters follow the usual conventions in that they are simply there to die and entertain the audience while getting across the sub-text of our slasher horror. They will often die in stock situations that will be easily recognizable to the audience. For example one of our stock characters in our production is in the situation of running away from the antagonist in in the hurry falling over or nearly falling over a number of times before she later dies. In this stock situation she is in the correct décor and background of an empty park despite the lighting not being low-key it still creates simply through location and lack of sound a scary scene.

Partially finished Theory Prezi
https://prezi.com/pg2go9t6oqmn/present/?auth_key=ffpsfo1&follow=ndsftn5wj-wi&kw=present-pg2go9t6oqmn&rc=ref-171095694

Partially finished sub genres emaze
https://www.emaze.com/@AZQOZIFQ/horror-sub-genres

Summer Transition Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhS7SvcwOYs