Genre Theory: Maltby

Genre Theory: Maltby from Robson Woodley

Genre Theory: Moine (2008)

Genre Theory - Moine (2008) from Robson Woodley

Genre Theory: Repetition and Differences

Genre theory - Repetition and Differences from Robson Woodley

First Poster Draft and Analysis

Here is a very early poster draft we have came ip with. We have used other horror film posters as inspiration to create our own unique one. We studies all the common horror film poster conventions so we could make one to the best of our ability. Our draft poster is based on a completely random idea that is unlikely to be used for our actual trailer, but focuses on the themes of horror film posters so we can use it to create a better, related one in the future.

We have came up with our company name of 'Oblivion Films'. We have used white font so it contrasts with the dark background of the alley way for all the pieces of text on the poster. We have used a bold font called 'Chalkduster' so it really stands out from other posters and attracts potential customers to watch the film when it comes out in cinemas. 'Chalkduster' is a clear to read font that looks as if it is written in chalk. The title looks rough around the edges as if its been beat up and ruined. It also looks like it is being washed away every so slowly which could hint to the audience about the plot.

The background image of an alley is very similar to that of other horror movie posters. The alley way creates mystery and suspense, but also intrigues the audience about the relevance of the alley and how it contributes to the plot. We have also found a character online and then used photoshop to remove the background from the image and remove any light from around the figure. We have then turned the body into a silhouette so it was dark and blended in with the dusky background. The black shadow of a figure creates a hidden, unknown character to the audience and creates mystery for the audience. It also interests the potential audience to find out who the character is and why they might be going down this alley. We have also added a shadow of the character on to the floor which makes the poster look more realistic and scary. The figures body blocks out the light from the end of the alley which could suggest that the character hides in the shadows and cut off all sources of light.

Movie Poster Analysis: The Amityville Horror

This is the poster for the movie 'The Amityville Horror'. The overall look of the poster has a stereotypical horror movie look, with what seems to be the antagonist of the movie being shown with their back to the audience with what seems to be a weapon in hand. Along with that the character is being shin standing in front of a big house which is most likely the place where the whole narrative is held.

The title of the movie is shown in bold big letters which only takes up a small portion of the poster. However, even with that the positioning of the title still is able to attract a lot of attention due to its colours, which contrasts against the overall poster as it mainly has dark colours all over it. The colours of the title seem to be a mix of orange with blood red, which connote to violence due to their more morbid look. The actual title seems to be in a very rigid and rough font which is normally connoted to freight and fear, two qualities that are very needed in a horror film. The 'Y' in the title seems to also represent a blood trail, showing that the film is more so one to show violence and gore rather than try focusing on jump scares.
Underneath the title the words 'BASED ON A TRUE STORY' are shown. This can most likely get the audience more excited to watch the movie as the whole narrative will be seen as something that has happened in the real world, thus giving the whole film an extra layer of freight and horror.

The poster also has a sort of rip or tire mark effect to show the character and the setting of the movie. This effect can be seen s a way to put more mystery into the movie as the audience will be wondering if that has any actual relevance to what might happen within the film. Also, on the left hand side of the poster, the words 'WATCH EM & KILL EM' can be seen written in faint white paint on top of the dark background, this is most likely the dialogue hook that the producers are trying to reel in more of an audience with. The overall feeling that you get from reading that is fear and freight along with some mystery as it leads you to think of how the antagonist of the whole story will be carried out and portrayed, mainly due to this giving us an early portrayal of them as a blood thirsty psychopath who seeks to kill anyone in sight.

The age rating of the film can be seen within the bottom left hand corner hidden away after all the text that includes the names of the ones involved with the making of the movie. This can be seen as a move to try and possibly help reel in more viewers as the age restriction isn't too visible. This might also help with the advertisement of the film as the more younger people, teenagers, would possibly still spread word of mouth about the film, giving the producers easy and free advertisement for their film. Along with that, there would possibly be boost in DVD sales when the film comes out in that format as the people who are deemed too young to watch the movie could get an adult to buy the film for them.

At the top o the poster it also says that the creators of 'The Amityville Horror' also created a remake of the widely known movie 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre', called 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', which got an overall rating of 6.2/10 on IMDB from 107,000 votes, compared to its predecessor which got a rating of 7.5/10 on IMDB. This can be seen as something to be watched out for by the audience as they'll see how much lower the rating is than the original and might be put off from seeing 'The Amityville Horror' by these figures.

Movie Poster Analysis: The Thing

This is the movie poster for the horror film 'The Thing'. The poster stands out a lot from and from first look you instantly know that it is a horror film. It grabs the attention of the audience due to the solid black background. The background makes the title stand out as it creates a very strong contrast to the title and other key elements of the poster. The poster is very stereotypical to horror films due to the certain conventions it follows.

The title is in a very big, bold font that covers half of the poster. It contrasts to the plain background and thus makes it stands out. The title has a picture edited in a certain way so that the character is in the title. The character is in a snow storm which makes it fade nicely into the white title. The character has claws which suggests to the audience that the character in the title is the 'thing' and that we should be afraid of it. The character has their hood up and back to the camera which creates more mystery about the 'thing' and intrigues the audience to watch it so they can find out what the 'thing' is.

Under the title there are the words "IT'S NOT HUMAN. YET." The capitalisation, even though the font is a small size makes it stand out to the audience and grab their attention. The words are a dialogue hook which creates a loose end that will be tied up by the end of the narrative. Just by reading the words from the poster, the audience will want to know how it becomes human, and what it was before.

At the bottom of the poster we see the age rating of the film, a website name and the month that it comes out into cinemas. The age rating is very small and tucked away into the corner. This is so it doesn't get noticed as much as the age rating could turn away viewers. On top of that, people younger than this age bracket might still advertise the film through word of mouth to their friends which could boost sales of the film. Furthermore, when the film comes out on DVD these younger people may want to watch it and so could get their parents to buy it for them. If the age rating was much bigger then the younger audiences may just stop reading the poster and as a result . The word 'October' is in bright red in bold font. Red is a common colour for movie posters of this genre as it is the colour of blood which is a common theme of horror film plots. The website address is just another way in which audience members can research more about the film and get more information.

At the top of the poster it says that 'The Thing' was also made by the same producers of those that made 'Dawn Of The Dead' which is a highly popular film, getting a 7.4/10 on IMDB from 190,000 votes. This suggests that the film is brilliant as the production company are seen as very good due to the great success of their past film. This advertises the film massively and will instantly make  many people want to watch the film as soon as they can.

Initial Film Trailer Analysis

For our AS production, we started our production plan with a completely different idea to our final result. We originally had a plan of the character being killed in a barn. We realised this idea was impractical due to lighting issues as it was too dark in the barn and the cameras couldn't record. This led to us deciding to think and use a different plan. This was when we came up with the idea of using a swimming pool and being strangled to death and then thrown into the pool. After we decided on our plot, we filmed some different camera angles that we could then use in our opening. This gave us good knowledge about what angles would look good for our opening and what angles would give the effect that we wanted. Its also gave us an idea of how to position the cameras for our opening and tips on where to place the cameras in the room to create these angles. We then filmed our production with the majority being on the first day with a bit more filming completed on a second day. We then edited it all together to create our final production in which we then uploaded it to YouTube.

Whilst creating our AS production, I really enjoyed being able to experiment with my creative ideas when positioning the cameras trying to create interesting angles. I also enjoyed editing the clips together as I learned a lot whilst doing it and got to try new things ideas. It really did give me a big insight to how films are actually made and produced which I found very interesting to get a first hand experience of it, but just on a much smaller scale.

Creating our own production really showed me the difficulty of creating a production. We spent many hours just filming the opening scene. This made me realise the extent film companies have to go to in order to make a full length production. It also presented the issue of having small budgets with the filming. Big conglomerates can spend vast amounts of money on costumes, lighting, sound and various other pieces of equipment where as small independent companies will not have as much budget to do this so might find it harder to make the best quality films. This showed to me what it was like to have a small budget and put us in a similar position to Warp Films who have very small production budgets in comparison to the "big six". It also made me understand the time needed for a production to be made. We spent multiple hours filming, and even more editing it to a good standard for what we are capable of. Film companies will spend months on creating films, if not even longer in order to perfect their product so it is ready for the audience. This experience made me see the difficulty that small independent film companies face on a regular basis and helped me understand the movie industry better.

My first thought about the two options was that the movie trailer would be a lot more interesting to produce as we can use lots of very interesting camera angles, editing methods, sounds and fonts; making it very different and unique compared to the short film. The trailer will enable us to show off what we can do and use the skills we have.

I think the best, most dramatic and gripping trailers are those of action, thriller and horror genres. The issue with doing an action trailer is that good trailers such a 'James Bond' require lots of funds to make them amazing. These funds allowed Eon Productions to use lots of special effects making the trailer more intense. These special effects, such as explosions, make everything in the trailer so much more dramatic and spectacular, creating excitement for the audience. They are also able to use helicopters to film the car chases meaning they can have lots of interesting camera angles giving them a diverse look at the action. However this is very unrealistic for us as we do not have the budget to produce such a high spectacle trailer using so many special effects. James Bond is such a large franchise that it appeals to nearly all audiences and will attract every age group from young to old. It was well advertised and used synergy on its release, synchronising the release with the song featured in the film, 'Writing's on the Wall'.

A horror film trailer consists of darkness and mystery which create tension and suspense as well as making the film scary for the audience. Horror films tend to have much lower budgets than many other genres and are usually the genre used by small independent film companies because they can be produced to a high quality. 'The Conjuring 2' was produced with a budget of $40 million which is relatively small compared to films such as 'Spectre' which had a huge budget of $250 million. A trailer for a horror film will include lots of quick cuts and lots of jump scares in order to show that it's a horror film and to entice the audience to watch it when it comes out. 'The Conjuring 2', produced by New Line Cinema, creates loose ends when it talks about the plot so the audience want to watch it to see how the issues get resolved, if at all. The trailer is creepy, scary and has lots of mystery and surprise by having multiple jump scares. However, it doesn't show any build up to these jump scares so the audience are in mystery to when they will happen and so they are still a surprise in the actual film.

'Pontypool' is a very low budget film produced by Shadow Shows and Ponty Up Pictures. The trailer is very simple as it is some people hosting a radio show for the majority of it. It uses intense, dramatic music combined with an eery silence in the background towards the end of the trailer as bright, vibrant red words come on to the screen. The trailer has a few clips of a car and people attacking it but leaves the audience in mystery as they are given no reason why. It creates lots of tension for the audience in this very short, 1 minute trailer. 'Pontypool' had a target audience of males aged 30-44. IMDB states that 16,581 males rated the film; 10,525 of them were aged between 30-44. 'Pontypool' begins with a scene of the radio presenter asking lots of questions but lacking a response from the reporter. The trailer ends with the radio presenters and the building being attacked by something unknown to the audience. The trailer shows the very basic outline to the plot; showing the audience a setting and an introduction to the plot, a few clips from the middle, and then the potential end to the film but still leaves it un resolved. If we were to choose a horror film genre to produce a trailer for, then it would have to be kept very simple with lots of quick cuts to build suspense and create tension for the audience.